The nation is waiting
to hear a coherent plan of action from the three musketeers of the
opposition, Arseniy Yatseniuk, Vitali Klitschko and Oleh Tiahnybok.
We’re hoping that the opposition’s position on whether to concede to a re-vote in five constituencies, as ordered by the Central Election Commission and parliament, will at last become unified. It seems to be changing depending on the time of day and speaker.
Many voices are calling for the opposition to reject a re-vote in selected majority constituencies. Some claim that the only way to restore democracy is to start from scratch and conduct a new national election with a new law.
This is the wrong path to take. Moreover, I think that calling people out to the streets for never-ending protests and starting hunger strikes is harmful.
Against all odds, the opposition performed phenomenally well in the Oct. 28 election, considering mass falsification during the vote count, bullying and pressure, election commissions controlled by the ruling Party of Regions and so on.
The three oppositional parties, Batkivshchyna, Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reforms and Svoboda received 180 seats in the 450-seat Rada.
Considering that the pro-presidential Party of Regions hoped for a constitutional majority of 300 seats in the Verkhovna Rada, and now it is having difficulty assembling even a simple majority, this is a great victory for the people. Refusing to accept seats would be the real treason.
The Party of Regions knows that they are weakened. Hence, the frantic moves in the current Rada to pass key legislation.
They have increased the number of people required to create a deputy’s group in parliament to coerce newly elected independent candidates to join their faction.
They have approved a new law on referendums. They hope to approve the 2013 budget this month before the new parliament convenes. All of this points to the Regions’ uncertainty about their power in the new parliament.
Moreover, the opposition’s demand to conduct a new national election is pushing the country into shaky legal ground and will bring no qualitative change.
I think that calling people out to the streets for never-ending protests and starting hunger strikes is harmful.
Andreas Gross, head of the observers’ delegation to Ukraine of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, was sharp on the prospects of the new election: you cannot elect a new parliament using the old rules and hope for a new result.
The current election law is a serious obstacle toward electing a new parliament in a democratic fashion – and not just because half of the deputies are elected through district races.
It’s because the law has serious flaws in regulating procedures for districting, appointment of replacement election commissioners, computer transmission of election data, authority of electoral officials and courts and so on.
These shortcomings that helped election fraud did not appear overnight. More than a year before the election law’s November 2011 approval, a presidential commission worked out the draft law.
The expert community rang alarm bells at the time because they knew where this was going to lead – to fixed elections.
Representatives of the National Democratic Institute quit the commission in protest.
At the time, the opposition failed to respond adequately and the press mainly ignored the issue. The fault law was even approved with the help of the opposition.
The incumbents played a long and well-planned game, so the opposition ended up in a hole they dug for themselves.
By failing to accept a re-vote, the opposition will also betray the candidates whose victories were stolen through fraud and the violations in these constituencies.
The hole will only get deeper if they fail to accept the only compromise that President Viktor Yanukovych seems willing to make – a re-vote in five majority constituencies (or maybe seven).
By failing to accept a re-vote, the opposition will also betray the candidates whose victories were stolen through fraud and the violations in these constituencies.
They will betray supporters who fought for every seat with police special units, heads of district commissions and in courts.
Moreover, the opposition’s current fight for 13 troublesome constituencies out of 225 single-mandate seats overall is disproportionate to the potential benefit.
The effort is misdirected also because — just by ballot stuffing in eastern Ukraine — they lost more seats to the ruling Party of Regions, according to the findings of OPORA, the largest network of observers.
The opposition should learn that the current system of governance cannot be overturned overnight. The opposition is still in disarray. There is no understanding that you can lose some battles, but win the war.
They should be starting their work in the Rada and form a united front. They should know that the Party of Regions will have a majority for now, but also realize that it’s fragile and temporary, and there is still time to organize before the 2015 presidential election.
The people of Ukraine have already shown that they are not enamored with those in power. It’s no secret that the president is unpopular.
The opposition should quietly negotiate future moves and a possible majority with independents and even worthy representatives of the fractured Party of Regions, because this is good politics.
They need to agree on a single candidate for the presidential election, and they need to do it early. They need to make sure they don’t fall for the scenarios hoped for by the president’s strategists, such as the replay of 1999 presidential election, when a weak president ran against a radical bogeyman.
At the time, it was the Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko. But this time the polarity might change to the far right.
For many Ukrainians, these compromises look like collaboration.
But if this is the case, then newly re-elected President Barack Obama should also be considered a collaborationist.
In his victory speech, he talked about making peace and bipartisan cooperation for the future. He talked about compromise. But in Ukraine, this word is equated with betrayal.
Kyiv Post editor Katya Gorchinskaya can be reached at [email protected].
