After late and poor start of parliament campaign People's Front party of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk managed to double its popularity over the last month to almost 9 percent, gaining a solid chance to get into the new Verkhovna Rada.
While in mid-September the party had some 3.9 percent, which is lower than the 5 percent threshold, a poll by Rating sociological service published on Oct. 13 gave the People’s Front 8.9 percent of support and third place after the Bloc of President Petro Poroshenko and the Radical Party of Oleg Liashko.
For the party with six ministers and parliament speaker Oleksandr Turchynov, dozens of popular battalion commanders and some activists of the Euromaidan Revolution among its candidates, this success is expected, experts say.
It was also boosted by massive, aggressive and obviously expensive PR campaign, which critics believe shows poor judgment in a cash-strapped and war-torn country.
“What is the prime minister doing when he is able to be present at the billboard everywhere? And one billboard equals one bullet-proof vest,” said Yury Karmazin, head of the Green Country political party during a political debate broadcast on 1st National TV channel on Oct. 13.
Yatsenyuk, who refused to take vacation during the election campaign as the law mandates, didn’t come to the debate, sending instead activist Viktoria Siumar, the former deputy head of National Security and Defense Council, who is No 7 on the party list.
Siumar responded to Karmazin that Yatsenyuk is “the best prime minister that Ukraine has ever had” and the team of People’s Front are the “people, who are not afraid to take responsibility.” She added that the name “People’s Front” means that the party plans at first to cope with war and secondly – to ensure reforms the way they had been done by various parties that were calling themselves “fronts” in post Socialist states in the 1990s.
People’s Front was registered on March 31, when Yatsenyuk and Turchynov decided to leave Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party and form their own political force.
Despite being a new one, this party has 56 percent of political veterans in its list, including those in power now. Apart from Yatsenyuk, the government representatives of the People’s Front are Arsen Avakov, the interior minister, Pavlo Petrenko, the justice minister, Ostap Semerak, minister of the Cabinet of Ministers, Liudmyla Denysova, minister of social policy and Maksym Burbak, the minister of infrastructure who is running in a single-mandate district with party support.
While the People’s Front doesn’t have candidates from the disgraced former ruling Party of Regions, as the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko does, it still has some controversial candidates. They include lawmakers Mykola Kniazhytsky, participant of murky dispute over ownership of independent TVi Channel, Sergiy Pashynsky, who was spotted in illegal voting for other lawmakers in parliament and Mykola Martynenko, whom influential politician Yury Lutsenko accused of bribing the lawmakers in parliament.
Many political newcomers with the People’s Front have military backgrounds.
Those include Andriy Teteruk, commander of the Myrotvorets (Peacekeeper) Battalion, Yury Bereza, commander of the Dnipro 1 Battalion, Roman Pytskiv, commander of the Chernihiv Battalion, Vadym Troyan, the deputy head of the Azov Battalion and Mykhailo Havryliuk, a EuroMaidan Revolution activist and military blogger Dmytro Tymchuk.
The military men compose a quarter of candidates in People’s Front in comparison, compared to just 2-9 percent in other political forces, according to the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, an election watchdog.
Political consultant Taras Berezovets said that the surplus of soldiers in parliament would bring to “radicalization” of new Verkhovna Rada. He added that it would be hard for the military men to do the lawmaker’s job when the war is going on.
Political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said that it’s strange to see battalion commanders spending a lot of money to get elected while the country’s military forces remain hugely dependent on people’s donations. “Maybe it would be better to spend this money for battalions than for the elections?” he said.
Given the rich PR campaign of the People’s Front and presence of several candidates, including Bereza, of the Dnipropetrovsk-based Dnipro 1 Battalion, some analysts believe that Dnipropetrovsk Governor Ihor Kolomoisky also subsidizes this party.
Fesenko said that, when the government let Kolomoisky’s group manage two mining and processing plants in Dnipropetrovsk and Zhytomyr oblasts, it was a sign that the billionaire has good relations with Yatsenyuk.
The party’s political program reflects the government’s statements, including integration into the European Union and NATO, decentralization, independence of judges, deregulation of business and reliance on foreign aid in restoration of eastern areas damaged by war. But it gives the priority to security reinforcement and army reform that will target creation of 150,000-people modern equipped army with 500,000 soldiers of reserve, Siumar said during the debate. The program, however, didn’t elaborate how these targets could be achieved.
Some of the party’s ideas are also populist, like the so-called Wall project, a plan for creation of a massive and expensive fortification on the border with Russia. “This is just a stupid and primitive PR,” Fesenko said.
Fesenko believes that the rating of People’s Front is dependent on Yatsenyuk’s personal popularity and reflects all the achievements and losses of the current government. He believes that Yatsenyuk’s chances to keep his post of prime minister after the elections will depend on his party’s success.
“I have no doubts they (People’s Front) will be in parliament,” Fesenko said. “But their results may vary from 6 to 10 percent,” he added, saying that Yatsenyuk’s chances to stay at the helm of the Cabinet are over 50 percent.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at [email protected]
