You're reading: Polls show Communists, Svoboda, Right Sector heading for defeat in Oct. 26 parliamentary election

In December, a group of activists pulled down the prominent statue of Bolshevik Revolution leader Vladimir Lenin on Shevchenko Boulevard. 

Citizens have been toppling the Communist Party icon all over Ukraine since then, including in Kharkiv’s central European Square. 

And the popularity of the Communist Party has been toppling as well. 

First, its 32-member faction dissolved on July 24 in parliament, five months after the EuroMaidan Revolution succeeded in ousting President Viktor Yanukovych on Feb. 22. All of its members voted in favor of the Jan.16 “dictator laws” designed to curb free speech and free assembly in a failed bid to keep Yanukovych in power.

Now Communist Party lawmakers and candidates are rallying behind their longtime pro-Russian leader, Petro Symonenko, but unable to score above the five percent threshold for election, at least in campaign polls.

The Communists’ perhaps fatal undoing as a political force came after national condemnation and widespread accusation that its members supported Kremlin-backed separatists waging war in Ukraine’s east. The party came close to being shut down after the Ministry of Justice filed a lawsuit demanding a ban for undermining of Ukraine’s sovereignty.

The parliament election on Oct. 26 is likely to become the first one in the nation’s 23 years of independence where the communists won’t be present at all, although the party was briefly banned from 1991 to 1993 after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

A joint poll by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology and Democratic Initiatives Foundation published on Oct. 22 gives them 4.1 percent of votes. The 16 other most likely losing parties also include the ideological antagonists of the communists — nationalist Svoboda party and Right Sector, the poll indicated.

“I think our rating is lower because there is a war in the territories, where we traditionally had support,” Kateryna Samoilyk, Communists’ lawmaker and No. 3 in party’s list told the Kyiv Post. Nevertheless, she insisted her party would make it to the parliament.  

In 2012, more than 2.6 million people voted for the Communists, allowing them to get 32 parliament seats. But most of their supporters lived in Crimea, which is now annexed by Russia and not voting, and Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, almost a half of which are currently controlled by Russian-backed separatists.

In his lawsuit against the Communist Party, Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko claimed he had proof that the party openly supported the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea and assisted, including with arms, insurgents in the east.

Kyiv Post+ is a special project covering Russia’s war against Ukraine and the aftermath of the EuroMaidan Revolution.

The Kyiv Post saw red flags of the Communist Party at the offices and checkpoints of separatists-controlled areas, even more often than the Russian flags. In some eastern cities, including Lysychansk and Novodruzhesk, the Kyiv Post saw that the headquarters of armed separatists were based in the local offices of Communist Party.

Samoilyk refuted the accusations of inflating the eastern conflict, blaming instead Ukrainian oligarchs and “geopolitical interests of big countries.” Despite constant critics of oligarchs, party leader Symonenko became known for a lavish lifestyle, residing in a luxury mansion in Kyiv outskirts, where only the land is estimated at $1.5 million.

But Vitaly Teslenko, deputy head of Committee of Voters of Ukraine election watchdog, said that communists still have little chance to get into the parliament if they manage to mobilize what remained of their electorate.  

They still have some 6 percent support among people 60-69 years-old, and among those, who are more than 80 years old, the Communists have 8 percent of support, the poll shows.

In single election districts, the Communist Party traditionally has low chances for success, Teslenko said. But the former Communists, who defected from the party faction, including lawmakers Olsana Keletnyk and Serhiy Baladin, are now running as independent candidates in Vinnytsia and Dnipropetrovsk Oblasts, respectively.

The nationalist Svoboda Party, vehemently anti-communist, risks losing their parliament seats along with their rivals.

In the 2012 election, Svoboda, led by Oleh Tiahnybok, unexpectedly managed to get more than 10 percent of votes that allowed them to have 38 seats in parliament, including 13 lawmakers elected in single election districts. But the current poll gives Svoboda only 3.1 percent of votes.

Teslenko, the elections observer, said that Svoboda disappointed its electorate living mostly in the western part of the country after they failed to bring any system changes in the regions, where they had influence.

Instead, Svoboda became memorable by a number of scandals, including the case on Oct. 14, when son of party’s candidate was suspected of beating with iron chain the policemen guarding the parliament building. These cases also turned away a part of electorate from Svoboda, Teslenko believes.

But Oleg Syrotiuk, Svoboda’s lawmaker and No 12 in party list, said his party will get into parliament and blamed sociologists of publishing forged ratings “influenced by oligarchs.”

“Before, during the previous elections in 2012, they (the sociologists) were giving us even less than now,” he said.

Unlike Svoboda, the radical nationalist Right Sector is a political newcomer that was registered as political party only in late March with Dmytro Yarosh as its head.

Being formed during the EuroMaidan Revolution from several militantly national groups, the Right Sector led street fights against the police and attracted hundreds of radically oriented and mostly young people.

But their warlike methods scared off most of the population, especially after the revolution when the numerous mob groups started attacking businesses claiming they were representatives of Right Sector.  

Now polls give this party less than 2 percent. Even Yarosh is running not on his party list but in a Dnipropetrovsk Oblast election district.

“They have a too-radical image,” said Teslenko.

Even though the Right Sector also volunteered to defend Ukraine in the east against Russia’s war, most people have gravitated to more moderate post-Maidan parties that also widely include fighters in their lists, Teslenko added.

One more newcomer with relatively good support is political party All-Agrarian Union Zastup – a form of spade in Ukrainian. This party is expected to get about 1.4 percent of the support, according to the poll. Zastup has been organized and led by Vira Ulianchenko, a close ally of former President Viktor Yushchenko. The party was formed only in July and is oriented specifically at people involved in agriculture.

The former governor of Kyiv Oblast in times of Yushchenko, Ulianchenko, who also headed presidential party Our Ukraine, managed now to collect a massive financing for her new project. “They have the most of public observers in Central Election Commission,” Teslenko said.    

While now the party has no chance, Ulianchenko claims she is preparing Zastup for next local elections, scheduled for 2015.

The Internet Party of Ukraine is another probable loser. Registered only in late September, this party’s top five candidates are named after Star Wars heroes, including Darth Vader as party leader. Wearing a costume of movie hero, Vader calls himself a “candidate with human face.”  

Being perceived by most people as just a funny joke, this party is still expected to get some 0.5 percent of votes, the poll shows. A number of commercials this party has on billboards and TV show that this project also combines good financing with advanced technology. 

“Probably this is just a long-term business project,” Teslenko said.

Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at [email protected]