Rivalries stunt opposition.
In a rare display of coordinated action, Ukraine’s political opposition chose a snowy National Unity Day on Jan. 22 to denounce political repression under President Viktor Yanukovych and take a stand for democratic values with about 4,000 supporters in Kyiv’s Saint Sophia Square.
The holiday marks Ukraine’s brief period of statehood after World War I, to announce a joint strategy for defeating Yanukovych’s ruling Party of Regions in the Oct. 28 parliamentary elections.
They said they would back single candidates in the 225 single mandate districts. The other half of parliament seats will be decided by proportional voting based on party lists.
Lawmakers from imprisoned Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party, Arseniy Yatseniuk’s Front of Changes party and boxing champion Vitali Klitschko’s UDAR party, among others, said the candidates will meet the principles of “honesty, integrity, professionalism, social prestige and impeccable reputation.”
Recent public opinion polls show that the opposition has a strong chance of retaking control of parliament from Yanukovych’s allies. But to break the authorities’ grip on power, they will need to present a united front rather than compete among themselves for votes.
The election will be closely watched by Europe and the U.S. Both have warned that that fairness of the vote will be a litmus test for Yanukovych and reversing the nation’s democratic regression.
The president is accused of trying to sideline rivals by orchestrating the recent arrests and criminal trials targeting ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and ex-Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko. Western leaders have already warned that any election without Tymoshenko and Lutsenko would not be considered fair.
Klitschko said the imprisoned Lutsenko and Tymoshenko “should run in the next parliamentary election, adding: “Only together can we win. Because we believe in our strength, we believe in Ukraine.” Klitschko’s party stands a chance to break into parliament for the first time this year.
The crowd battled brown slushy snow that had collected on the square Youngsters laughed and took pictures against the colorful opposition banners. They wore political stickers but occasionally ran off to nearby cafes to warm up.
The rally exposed the problems within the disparate opposition camp: the inability to agree on major issues, divisiveness and lack of trust. These problems, could endanger their ambitious goal of taking control of the Verkhovna Rada this year.
Opposition parties have also failed to attract a groundswell of support, and the rally on Jan. 22 was dogged by allegations that many of the participants were paid to stand and wave flags.
Blogger Andriy_Kovalov posted photographs on his blog of what he said were protest participants lining up to get paid. Some opposition leaders called for these claims to be investigated.
On the stage, leaders of around a dozen opposition party signed a memorandum on cooperation in the elections. The document sets a plan to present a single list of candidates for all 225 majority constituencies. They would still compete against each other for the other 225 seats in the Rada that will be elected via a vote for parties rather than individuals.
The agreement also called to stop “political repression” and free opposition leaders Tymoshenko, Lutsenko and “other political prisoners.”
Obstacles to unity surfaced immediately. Anatoliy Hrytsenko, leader of Civic Position, accused Turchynov of failing to show the text of the memorandum to colleagues before the signing.
But more importantly, despite the bold front, it was clear that forming a single list of candidates for the majority constituencies would be challenging. Right after the signing, Klitschko came out with an initiative to hold the equivalent of U.S. presidential primaries to allow voters, rather than party leaders, to decide who deserves to be on the list of the chosen.
Moreover, he called for public debate on the wording of the memorandum of joint actions by the opposition. He said the document should contain detailed explanation of quotas for various parties, the process of nomination and so on.
“The agreement should establish specific mechanisms for further work,” Klitschko said.
The public squabbling was reminiscent of the fate of the so-called “Kaniv Four,” an attempt at unification of four major political figures in 1999 to challenge the then-President Leonid Kuchma. The four leaders signed a memorandum on cooperation, and then failed to choose a single candidate from within their own ranks and lost the election.
“The difference is that the ‘Kaniv Four’ had started off with a loose agreement on who would actually run, and today each one of them [opposition leaders] is starting off with 225 hopefuls from their own party behind their backs,” says Kost Bondarenko, a political analyst and a former deputy leader of a party.
Bondarenko said that the opposition leaders are trying to outsmart each other, while promising their own hopefuls in majority constituencies that they will be picked out for the single opposition list on decision day.
Kyiv Post staff writer Denis Rafalsky can be reached at [email protected].
