If there were any surprises in the Oct. 28 vote, they were delivered by the ultra-right Svoboda Party. Just two weeks ago it looked like clearing the 5 percent threshold was a challenge for it. But on Election Day it more than doubled that number, according to all five exit polls.
It even won a majority in three oblasts – Lvivska, Ternopilska and Ivano-Frankivska — all in western Ukraine, according to a poll commissioned by ICTV television station. In the same poll Svoboda came out fifth nationwide with 11.9 percent.
Svoboda campaigned on national slogans, promising to “turn everything around in favor of Ukrainians.” The aggressive rhetoric of its leaders often borders on fascism. That’s why their result in predominantly Russian-speaking Kyiv came out as a surprise for many. Svoboda came second in the ICTV exit poll after United Opposition Batkivshchyna, getting nearly a quarter of votes in Kyiv.
“I don’t know why they shot up,” says Yevhen Kopatko, head of Research and Branding polling company. “I need to research it more in-depth.” He added that his own poll gave Svoboda just 6.4 percent a week before the election. On Oct. 28, they got 11 percent in the Research and Branding exit poll.
Other analysts have said the vote for Svoboda is essentially a protest vote, against the incumbents and in favor of new faces in politics. Svoboda should now get 30 seats in the Rada through the proportional vote, and is expected to do well in some majority races in western Ukraine.
Oleh Tyahnybok, Svoboda’s leader, predicted that the party will have 45 seats, or 10 percent of the Rada. He also says he is worried about the election vote count.
“We understand perfectly what kind of falsifications will now be used on the night of Oct. 28-29 in the precinct commissions. And we’re asking our representatives to pay maximum attention following up on this vote count,” he said during a live TV broadcast on Ukraina TV channel. He also asked foreign observers to watch the vote count closely, and said the most fraud will happen in the majority race.
Tyahnybok was a member of parliament twice, in 1998 and 2002, but was excluded from Viktor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine faction after he gave a controversial speech in the summer of 2004. In that long speech he said that “Ukraine should be given finally to Ukrainians” and that Ukraine is ruled today by a “Muscovite-Jewish mafia.” Tyahnybok says a criminal case was opened against him for inciting ethnic hatred, but he managed to win all the court cases and protect his name. He thinks there was nothing chauvinistic or anti-Semitic about the speech and does not back down from his words.
“All I said then, I can also repeat now,” he says. “Moreover, this speech is relevant even today.”
