You're reading: United Opposition and UDAR agree to back same candidate in 51 races

 At the last moment, only 13 days before the parliamentary election and two days before the deadline for candidates to withdraw, opposition forces have finally come to agreements in 51 single-mandate races.

But will it be a case of too-little, too late?

Both main oppositional forces – Ukrainian Democratic
Alliance for Reforms Party, led by heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko,
and the United Opposition, led by Arseniy Yatsenyuk and imprisoned former prime
minister Yuliya Tymoshenko, agreed to back the same candidate in 51 of the
nation’s 225 constituencies.

The United Opposition also withdrew one candidate and
threw its backing to an independent challenger in Odesa Oblast.   

The decision was made on the basis of poll ratings and
a consensus over which opposition candidate has the best chance of beating the
pro-presidential ones. The thinking is that the unity will help these
candidates beat the pro-presidential Party of Regions in these areas.

Oleksandr Turchynov thinks the last-minute unity will
cost pro-government forces some 20 races. Yatsenyuk agrees: “It further
increases opposition chances for victory.”

UDAR dropped 26 of candidates mostly in Kharkiv, Cherkasy,
Sumy, Zhytomyr and Vinnytsya Oblast, including two candidates in Kyiv.

The list of 26 dropouts from the United Opposition is
expected soon to be made public. Among them there are two current lawmakers,
Yuriy Hanushchak, who was running in Kyiv, and Yuriy Serbin from Sumy Oblast.

Hanushchak was called off to improve the chances of
Viktor Chumak in Kyiv electoral district number 214, where Chumak is in fierce
fight with Oles Dovhyi, a pro-governmental controversial former head of the Kyiv
City Council.

Yuriy Serbin gave a way to UDAR candidate Oleg
Ryabchenko in electoral district number 160 in Sumy Oblast as Ryabchenko is
competing with the Party of Regions’ Mykola Noga.

Two more candidates were dropped in Kyiv Oblast. In Odesa
Oblast Oleksandr Gorin was called off on the district number 139 to straighten
the chances of UDAR’s Olha Gerasimyuk.

While agreement is positive, it might be too little,
too late, as UDAR and United Opposition candidates will compete on most of the
electoral districts all over the country.

Batkivshchyna decided to remove only one candidate in
Kyiv in favor of Klitschko’s party – out of seven that UDAR was asking for.
Therefore, candidates nominated to run for parliament from UDAR and
Batkivshchyna will compete in 7 out of 13 constituencies in Kyiv alone.

Since the start of the
campaign, United Opposition and UDAR were holding talks on agreeing on one
common candidate for each of the country’s 225 electoral districts. But the
agreement was never made.

However, both main
opposition forces promise to cooperate after they get to parliament.   

United Opposition praised
the decision of the right-wing Svoboda Party to sign an agreement about the
creation of coalition of democratic forces in parliament.

However, Svoboda is on
the edge of not getting to parliament at all, as, according to the latest
surveys it has 4-5 percent popularity rate with the 5 percent threshold. 

Opposition has called on
Klitschko’s UDAR to sign the agreement. According to the United Oppositions’
statement, the first steps of the coalition in parliament would be “taking all
necessary means to set Yulia Tymoshenko, the leader of the opposition free,
Yuriy Lutsenko and other political prisoners, joint vote for the impeachment of
the president Viktor Yanukovych” and other.

A late September poll by
the Democratic Initiatives and Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found
that the leading five parties for parliament are: Party of Regions, UDAR,
Batkivshchyna, Communist Party and Svoboda.

Kyiv Post staff writer Svitlana
Tuchynska can be reached at [email protected]
and Kyiv Post staff writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at [email protected]