On May 16, Ukrainian rock legend Slava Vakarchuk announced the formation of a new political party to compete in the upcoming parliamentary elections, whenever they may be.
There’s debate going on right now as to whether the announcement of the break-up of the ruling coalition will allow the incoming president to dissolve parliament as he apparently wishes, as according to Ukrainian law the parliament cannot be dissolved with six months of a scheduled vote to that body, and the 30-day period in which parties have to horse trade over a new coalition make up will mean that if they wait until the last minute, the new coalition (which might be identical to the old one) will be formed at a time allowing the MPs to keep their places until October, as scheduled. There’s a possibility the new president’s legal team will challenge in court whether an actual coalition has been in place for some time, and then as we know Ukraine’s courts are prone to deliver results tailored to the needs of the powerful.
Regardless of when they happen, as scheduled or snap elections, Vakarchuk is now in the game. As this news spread, following an open air launch event with a decent media and public attendance, opinions began to spread on social media too. One comment I saw offered the observation that the constant creation of new political forces is an indication of an immature democracy. Yes, that is true, Ukraine is an immature, but maturing, democracy. But that dismissal of Vakarchuk’s new party, called “Holos” in Ukrainian, meaning either “vote” or “voice,” doesn’t stand up to a lot of debate. The first question is this, what choice is there? The existing parties?
We saw what happened in the presidential election, the people are fed up of those who have run the show so far. We saw the creation of “new” political parties at the last parliamentary elections, well, by and large the party names were new but most of the faces they put forward for seats in the 450-member Verkhovna Rada were old.
We saw the creation of the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko, from which some of the members became so disillusioned with the actions of the man they ostensibly joined up to support that they became openly hostile to and critical of him while remaining in that party. We saw the birth of Samopomich, and many hailed this grouping as the great hope for reform as it was the brainchild of relatively well-respected Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi. They have not lived up to their billing.
What was/is the “People’s Front”? What have they done for the people? Have they championed a move away from the “politics” of getting rich while in “public” service, or have they dabbled in the same?
Yes, Ukraine goes through cycles of the rise and fall of certain political powers, if we go back just over five years ago, Svoboda was a small but still significant political force with parliamentary members, they were probably a necessary element of the Ukrainian political scene at that time because they were the counterweight to the increased power being wielded by the Party of Regions. When the Party of Regions collapsed after President Viktor Yanukovych fled power on Feb. 22, 2014, so did Svoboda. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko’s UDAR was once a parliamentary force, one that has now vanished.
Ukrainians still have a choice to vote for ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s Fatherland Party, or Oleg Lyashko’s Radical Party, though why anyone would trust either one of them is beyond me. I’ll not waste any of this word count by even explaining why. The now-splintered Opposition Bloc (felon Paul Manafort’s parting gift to Ukraine) is what? They are the holdovers of the Yanukovych era, they are the businessmen using their parliamentary immunity and their connections to power to enrich themselves that represent the cancer that this country must remove, finally.
One of the problems with Ukraine’s political landscape is that too often Ukrainians have been faced with a choice of the least-bad option. This was how I felt in fact about the presidential election and why I chose to sit out that debate almost entirely (which, frankly, was quite refreshing and probably helped my sanity.)
With the field analysed, full disclosure, I know Vakarchuk. That stated, is there any reasonable cause for objective disagreement to anything written so far about the choices Ukraine faces? I’m not writing this simply because I know the person leading this new political force, and I am certainly not being directed or paid (by anyone) to write this. I am, as an observer of Ukrainian politics, simply sharing my views on where we are in this evolutionary process.
New political forces not only will come to power in Ukraine, but in the election of Zelenskiy, new political forces have come to power. The wheel is turning. What concerns me at this juncture though is that Zlenskiy and the forces he is aligned (some of whom may not be particularly “new” faces) with would use this momentum to perform a smash and grab raid and capture not just one, but two branches of Ukraine’s ruling system. To concentrate all of that power in the hands of one group, as Ukraine still struggles to bring about the changes needed to properly reset Ukraine’s politics, is, I believe, dangerous.
Zelenskiy won the Presidency in a landslide, but he is (again objective fact) politically untested, we still know little about who he is (his media appearances are largely social, brief, managed, staged), we (obviously) have less idea still of how effective he is going to be. Whether Zelenskiy wins or loses his legal battle (via the still pliant court system) to force snap elections to parliament, can he be trusted with control of the nation through both the presidency and the parliament? How folly would it be to put all of that power in the hands of one, untried, political grouping? And, by virtue of having won the landslide presidential election victory, is Zelenskiy now entitled to usurp the second co-equal branch of government? Of course he is not, and so the formation of Vakarchuk’s Holos party is not only timely, it is necessary.
What Ukraine needs now, as we continue to fight against the external enemy that brought war to the east of the country and fight the internal enemy that is institutionalized corruption, is checks and balances. A monopoly on power is extremely perilous at such a precarious time. What Vakarchuk just brought to the table is that check, and balance. In doing so, it should be noted, he will necessarily have to sacrifice some of the things that he has lived his life for, his love for music is what has brought him great success in that area of his life, but at the time that he felt that he needed to come forward and serve his country, his love for Ukraine has taken precedent.
And that opens up for a brief conclusion. Many of the words written so far in this article have been negative; what’s wrong with the system, the other parties, the alternative candidates. What about the positives?
When there was debate about whether Slava would throw his hat in the ring and run for the Presidency, his hypothetical candidacy was dismissed by some because he is “just” a musician. He’s not though, he is far more than “just” Ukraine’s most successful musician. He is honest, he is a patriot, he has integrity, he is exceptionally well read, he is talented at not just leading the band on stage, but the team behind it. Vakarchuk holds a Ph.D. in physics. He has chosen to take time to study in both Yale and Stanford universities, in fact he is the only figure in Ukrainian politics who has an kind of overseas education at all. Domestically, Slava has built up a nationwide following, with respect coming from all corners of the country, including those parts of the country temporarily occupied by Russia. This is exactly the kind of profile of someone who I believe is worth voting for, the stage, as they say, is set. The stakes, for Ukraine, could not be higher.
