The Oct. 28 election results putting the nationalist Svoboda Party into parliament for the first time have shocked many in Ukraine and abroad. But Svoboda’s leader, Oleh Tiahnybok, said people have nothing to fear.
The influential
Israeli Haaretz newspaper came out with an Oct. 29 calling Svoboda an “anti-Semitic
party.” Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said the election of such an
ultra-right party “would cause alert” in any democratic society, while the
Russian ambassador explained Svoboda’s success by “certain problems among young
people.”
But the
party leadership dismissed the allegations as “nonsense and fantasy.”
“We are not
an anti-Semitic party, we are not a xenophobic party,” Tiahnybok said. He also asked
the Israeli representatives to respect the choice of Ukraine’s people. “Perhaps
every party in the Israeli Knesset is nationalistic,” he said. “God grant us
have the same.”
Meanwhile,
Tiahnybok said he didn’t regret a scandalous statement he made in 2004 about national
minorities. A former ally of ex-President Viktor Yushchenko, Tiahnybok was
expelled from Yushchenko’s faction in parliament after saying that the country
was ruled by a “Moscow-Jewish mafia.” Later Tiahnybok said his words were
misinterpreted, adding that his Jewish friends never get offended with these
formulations.
Analysts say
that Svoboda has become less radical than in the 1990s and 2000s. Svoboda’s
predecessor, the Social-Nationalist Party was founded in Lviv in 1991,
proclaiming the ideology of social nationalism and having as their emblem a
monogram that resembled a Nazi swastika. But with the new name “Svoboda” (Freedom)
and a new leader, Tiahnybok changed the old emblem into a “tryzub,” Ukraine’s
national emblem.
The party
supported the 2004 Orange Revolution, the uprising that overturned a rigged
presidential election and ended in Yuschchenko’s election over current
President Viktor Yanukovych.
But later
Tiahnybok accused the orange leader of betraying the revolution’s ideals. The Svoboda
Party still often uses radical pro-revolution rhetoric, and its representatives
have many times clashed with their ideological opponents and the police.
Political
analyst Oleksiy Haran said Svoboda leadership has softened the radical rhetoric
although “some hotheads still remain there.” One of them, the philologist Iryna
Farion, has constantly made offensive statements about the Russian language. Svoboda
claims Farion has won in a single-mandate constituency in Lviv, and so will definitely
get into the parliament.
After more
that 70 percent of votes counted by Central Election Commission, the Svoboda Party
is showing 9 percent support. The exit polls, however, forecast that the party will
get about 11-12 percent when all the counting is done.
Thanks to
recent legislation changes elevating the status of the Russian language, many Ukrainians
reacted by becoming more nationalistic and favoring Svoboda as the best choice
for preserving Ukraine’s national culture.
While
political expert Volodymyr Fesenko believes Svoboda’s coming to power will bring
more conflict in the parliament, party representatives claim there will be no clashes
started by them.
“Perhaps we
are the only party, which has a definite clear stance for cooperation with all
of the national minorities,” said Ruslan Koshulynsky, head of Svoboda’s
election headquarters.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be
reached at [email protected].
