The Kaniv-4 alliance of presidential candidates finally fell apart on Oct. 26, just five days before the first round of voting in the presidential election on Oct. 31.
The disintegration of the alliance, which included centrist former Prime Minister Yevhen Marchuk, moderate leftist ex-parliament speaker Oleksandr Moroz, leftist speaker Oleksandr Tkachenko and little known Mayor of Cherkasy Volodymyr Oliynyk, vastly improved incumbent Leonid Kuchma’s chances of securing a second five-year presidential term.
The first sign that the alliance might be about to collapse came early on Oct. 25, when, after all-night talks, the four finally announced a single candidate, Yevhen Marchuk. But only hours later, Moroz threw the issue into the air again by ambiguously announcing that although he ‘fully supported’ Marchuk, he [Moroz] would not withdraw his candidacy.
‘We did not talk about the withdrawal of candidacies, we talked about support of a single one,’ Moroz said Oct. 25.
Moroz’s announcement seemingly wrecked the plan hammered out by the four in the talks, which would have seen Marchuk finally anointed the group’s single candidate. Under the plan, Tkachenko agreed to give up his potential presidency in exchange for the post of prime minister in Marchuk’s government. Oliynyk was to become general prosecutor, and Moroz was offered the less influential job of parliament speaker, a post he held from 1994 to 1998.
Moroz was the early favorite to be nominated by the group, but his chances were damaged by the Oct. 2 grenade attack on another top presidential contender, Progressive Socialist Natalia Vitrenko, which police said was commissioned by one of Moroz’s campaigners.
Even after that, Moroz was still considered the best single representative of the alliance, and Tkachenko and Oliynyk even agreed to drop out of the race in favor of Moroz on Oct. 16. However, Tkachenko changed his mind the very next day.
The nomination of Marchuk came as a surprise to many, even to the candidates’ staffers, and especially those of Moroz. His campaign workers said that they were shocked to hear on the morning of Oct. 25 that Moroz had allegedly agreed to support Marchuk.
And Moroz’s refusal to withdraw immediately triggered new divisions in the Kaniv-4. By the next day, the single candidate agreement, and the alliance itself, had apparently collapsed.
‘Moroz made his statement without agreeing it with us. In this situation the Kaniv-4 union loses any sense … and we [Marchuk, Oliynyk and Tkachenko] have decided to run independently,’ Tkachenko said Oct. 26.
Further confusing the situation in the opposition camp, Tkachenko formally announced his withdrawal from the race on Oct. 27, and urged his supporters to back Communist Party chief Petro Symonenko. Later the same day, Oliynyk said that he would withdraw in favor of Marchuk, Interfax reported.
The disintegration of Kaniv-4 could give a major boost to Kuchma, who may now focus on his less threatening leftist rivals, Vitrenko and Symonenko.
Most analysts expect the first round of voting to result in a run-off vote, as none of the candidates has a realistic chance of collecting more than 50 percent of the total number of votes cast, as required to win in the first round.
Kuchma is widely predicted a near certain victory if he goes into the run-off with either Vitrenko or Symonenko.
Meanwhile, some of the now former Kaniv-4 members have already tried to present their rivalry in a positive light, arguing that their failed attempts to build a united opposition front against Kuchma had at least won them a lot of publicity.
‘[If we had nominated a single candidate before], everyone would have forgotten about the Kaniv-4 by now. But instead everyone keeps talking about us,’ Moroz said during a televised debate among presidential candidates on the Studio 1+1 channel on Oct. 25.
But other commentators predicted that the end of the Kaniv-4 also spelled defeat at the polls for its members who remained in the race.
‘They [the Kaniv-4] have all killed themselves, because none of them has a plan B in the case that they lose,’ said Viktor Nebozhenko, a public relations consultant who planned Kuchma’s presidential campaign in 1994.
