You're reading: Election Watch: Chernivtsi Oblast prepares to vote in parliamentary elections

Editor’s note: As part of its Election Watch project, the Kyiv Post publishes stories assessing the state of the presidential race in Ukraine’s regions. The stories are submitted by local Ukrainian journalists and translated by the Kyiv Post. The project is supported by the National Endowment for Democracy. The donor has no influence on the content.

Chernivtsi Oblast doesn’t come into spotlight of Ukraine’s political life very often. But this time comes again on the eve of the 2019 parliamentary elections as the local elites might lose their influence on the life of the border region.

Chernivtsi Oblast boasts neither size nor economic power: with just over two percent of the entire Ukraine’s population and some 1.3 percent of the area, it accounts for one percent of the country’s GDP. Despite its size, Chernivtsi Oblast, historically known as Bukovyna, has distinct self-governing traditions that date back to the Austrian Empire. And its capital, Chernivtsi, serves as an important cultural and educational center of Ukraine.

“The territory of the region in the past has repeatedly been a part of different states,” said Anatoliy Kruhlashov, doctor of political sciences of the Chernivtsi National University. “It has greatly influenced the political culture of the Chernivtsi residents. They are accustomed to changing regimes, so changing political loyalty to them is not difficult.”

Local political elites of Chernivtsi Oblast became known on an all-Ukrainian scale after the Euromaidan Revolution. It was at the time when Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a native of Chernivtsi, became the prime minister of Ukraine. His colleague and a fellow graduate of the Chernivtsi National University, Pavlo Petrenko started serving as Minister of Justice.

During 2014, another Yatsenyuk’s fellow from Chernivtsi Maksym Burbak served as the minister of infrastructure. After the parliamentary elections he started his term as a lawmaker with the People’s Front Party headed by Yatsenyuk. In 2015, Burbak was elected the chairman of the People’s Front faction in parliament.

However, 2014 was also an important year for another Chernivtsi native, oligarch Dmytro Firtash. When former president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted from power in February 2014 amid mass protests, his ouster prompted Russia to seize the Crimean peninsula and sparked a war in eastern Ukraine that rages to this day. Firtash, meanwhile, was arrested by Austrian police weeks after Yanukovych fled, at the request of U.S. law enforcement. The charges were that he had attempted to bribe Indian officials to facilitate a titanium investment.

Despite being under house arrest in Austria since March 2014 as extradition hearings have gone on, he has continued to run his businesses in Ukraine, including oversight of the gas distribution network to the country’s regions. Austrian Justice Minister Clemens Jabloner on July 16 approved Firtash’s extradition to the United States, Deutsche Welle reported.

Another important feature of the Chernivtsi Oblast is its complex multicultural structure and proximity to Moldovan and Romanian borders. According to the 2001 census, 25 percent of the oblast’s population identify itself as national minorities – Romanian (12.5 percent) and Moldovan (7.3 percent).

In the last years, it sparked controversy after Ukraine’s new law on education which envisages that all secondary education will be taught in Ukrainian. Representatives of the Romanian national minority in the region, as well as the Moldovan and Roman governments were quick to react. Representatives of the Romanian community in the obalst repeatedly pretested the decision calling on the Ukrainian government to cancel or adjust the law.

Then Prime Minister of Moldova Pavel Philip and Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Meleskanu in 2017 asked Ukrainian government to protect the rights of national minorities for school education in their native language. These events didn’t stir political tensions in Chernivtsi Oblast but changed the perception of the Ukrainian officials in the region on the eve of the presidential and parliamentary elections.

Political preferences

“Chernivtsi can be a spot for electoral experiments,” said Taras Prokop of OPORA election watchdog in Chernivtsi Oblast. “After all, in terms of electoral preferences, it is a projection of the whole Ukraine.”

According to him, the electoral mood in the region can vary from district to district. In one of the constituencies which covers almost all territories with Romanian speakers, pro-Russian politicians typically get much more support than in the other three constituencies of the oblast, where pro-European forces are more popular. These differences represent the whole electoral map of Ukraine, according to Prokop.

Such heterogeneity in political views defines Chernivtsi Oblast from the neighboring regions of western Ukraine where voters more willingly support the national-democratic parties. At the same time, during the last five years, the electoral preferences of the population of this region were not stable.

In the previous parliamentary elections in Chernivtsi Oblast five forces passed the 5 percent threshold to enter the Verkhovna Rada – Batkivshchyna Party, Samopomich, Oleh Lyashko Radical Party, Petro Poroshenko Block and People’s Front. Yatsenyuk’s party celebrated the victory with over 32 percent of support in the region.

In all the election districts the leaders were the same: People’s Front party claimed the first place followed by the Petro Poroshenko Bloc Solidarity. The third place was divided between Oleh Lyashko Radical Party and Samopomich.

The pro-Russian forces that were represented in the 2014 elections, mainly by the Opposition Bloc Party, the Strong Ukraine Party and the Communist Party of Ukraine didn’t end up among the top five parties in any of the constituencies. However, they collectively gained a significant share of votes: more than 8.5 percent in the city of Chernivtsi, while in other two districts in the oblast 11 and 6 percent respectively.

Over the last five years, electoral preferences have changed significantly. According to December pollsters tracking the parliamentary campaign, at least seven parties can pass the five percent threshold: Batkivshchyna (22 percent among those who intend to participate in the elections) Servant of the People (12 percent), The Bloc of Petro Poroshenko ‘Solidarity’ (11 percent), Opposition Bloc (11 percent), Civic Position (8.9 percent) , Oleh Lyashko Radical Party (8.3 percent) and UKROP (6.5 percent).

However, further political events in Ukraine have somewhat changed the disposition of the political forces in the oblast. According to the results of the first round of the 2019 presidential elections, Volodymyr Zelensky won the victory in the region with 31 percent of support. He ranked first in all districts, gaining the majority in 385 out of 562 polling stations in Chernivtsi Oblast.

Yulia Tymoshenko claimed second place with almost 20 percent of votes, having won in 141 polling stations, former president Petro Poroshenko took the third place winning in just 14 polling stations and gaining over 14 percent of the votes in the oblast. The leader of the Opposition Platform For Life finished on the fourth place with almost 9 percent of support.

Zelensky who campaigned heavily on anti-Poroshenko sentiment won at 560 polling stations in the region and claimed almost 76 percent of the votes while former president was well behind with almost 22 percent.

The Chernivtsi Oblast results of the runoff elections almost repeated the results of the national vote. It became the latest measure of public opinion on the eve of the early parliamentary elections in the region since there was no separate poll conducted in Chernivtsi in the last three months.

Local elections spark region’s instability

Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front Party didn’t participate in the local elections in 2015. Yatsenyuk and his associates didn’t even nominate their representatives in their historical stronghold – Chernivtsi Oblast. Other parties quickly filled in the gap.

Petro Poroshenko Bloc received the largest number of seats in the Chernivtsi Regional Council with 24 percent of support. A significant number of other seats were claimed by the Batkivshchyna Party and the Agrarian Party of Ukraine 19 and 11 percent respectively. Both Samopomich and Oleh Lyashko Radical Party had eight percent, while Volya (Freedom), UKROP, People’s Control, Our Land Party and Opposition Bloc (the Party of Regions successor) each received six percent. Ivan Muntyan, a member of the Batkivshchyna Party, was elected chairman of the Chernivtsi Regional Council.

In 2015, Chernivtsi Oblast also formed its amalgamated territorial communities, one of the new local administration units created within Ukraine’s attempt to decentralize power in the country. Currently there are 33 units where more than 37 percent of the region’s population live. Totally more than 38 percent of the lawmakers in the councils of these communities are self-nominated. However, the biggest influence among all parties on the life of the region belongs to the Batkivshchyna: they account for 20.5 percent of all seats. Their closest rivals, the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko ‘Solidarity’ and the Radical Party, are far behind with almost 9 and 7 percent of all seats respectively.
However, Chernivtsi City Council and the post of city’s mayor have been in an epicenter of the region’s political life since 2011. The City Council lawmakers voted for the resignation of the long-serving mayor Mykola Fedoruk, a future member of the People’s Front party. This decision was backed by Yuriy Borisov, a long-time business partner of Firtash.

Chernivtsi City Council then appointed a member of Party of Regions, Vitaliy Mykhailyshyn as acting mayor. He served until the spring of 2014, when the Verkhovna Rada called for snap elections in the city after the EuroMaidan Revolution. The member of Yatseniuk’s Chernivtsi team Oleksiy Kaspruk won. He made it to the list of People’s Front before the parliamentary elections in fall 2014 but didn’t end up in parliament.

After 2015 local elections, Kaspruk was elected as the mayor which could potentially ease political tensions in the city. However, he didn’t have enough support in the council since People’s Front Party decided not to run in those elections. The largest faction was formed by representatives of the Our City party which includes former members of the Chernivtsi branch of the Party of Regions and representatives for Firtash.

For the past year, the head of the People’s Front faction in the Verkhovna Rada Burbak has repeatedly spoken about possibility of dissolving the Chernivtsi City Council and conducting early elections there. However, a year later there is no decision by the Verkhovna Rada on how to overcome the crisis of local authorities in Chernivtsi. At the same time Chernivtsi residents themselves have submitted a petition for holding snap elections to the city council this year. It was never adopted.

“Residents of Chernivtsi are waiting for elections to the Verkhovna Rada, so that the new parliament can finally vote on the re-election to the Chernivtsi City Council,” said Prokop of OPORA election watchdog. “After all, Chernivtsi lawmakers are not accepting any laws in favor of the community. This makes the development of the city impossible and also affects the whole region.”

Candidates

As of June 25, Central Election Commission registered 52 candidates in four electoral districts in Chernivtsi Oblast. In 2014 parliamentary elections this list included 59 candidates.

Of the 52 candidates, five were already lawmakers and 10 already took part in the previous parliamentary elections, while 20 were lawmakers of regional or local councils of the region. As of now more than 61 percent of the election participants in regional districts have never served in government. Currently there are four representatives of the Servant of the People Party in single-member districts in Chernivtsi Oblast.

“A voter in Chernivtsi Oblast, as in the rest of Ukraine, often chooses without much analyzing,” said Ihor Babiuk of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine in Chernivtsi Oblast. “
Few people are studying candidates’ programs. People vote more often for those they already know or whose campaigns they like. Very often the vote is determined already in the polling booth.”

According to the most recent poll by the sociological group Rating conducted on June 20-24, five parties have a chance to be represented in the Verkhovna Rada: Servant of the people, Opposition Platform For Life (leader Yuriy Boyko), Voice Party (leader Svyatoslav Vakarchuk), Batkivshchyna (leader Yulia Tymoshenko) and European Solidarity (leader Petro Poroshenko). These political forces have already announced their candidates in the majoritarian districts in the region.

European Solidarity Party

The former president’s party will be represented by entrepreneur Oleksandr Kupchanko, judge Eugene Romanyuk, associate professor of the Department of International Relations Chernivtsi National University Andriy Stetsyuk and entrepreneur Natalya Frunze. There are also two self-nominated candidates Ivan Rybak and Hryhoriy Timiš who represented Poroshenko’s party during the last parliamentary elections.

Batkivshchyna

The members of Batkivshchyna party in Chernivtsi are the local regional council representative Andriy Makovey, Chernivtsi City Council member Oleksandr Purshaga and Arthur Muntyan, and one of the Chernivtsi districts councils member Vasyl Melnyk.

Voice

Vakarchuk’s Voice Party nominated only one candidate – a political scientist, a former employee of various analytical centers of Maksym Kiyak who now lives in Kyiv. Also, number 53 in the Voice’s voting list is Paul Pshenichka who received “The Best Teacher Of the Year” award during the Global Teacher Prize Ukraine ceremony in 2017.

Opposition Platform For Life

The Opposition Platform For Life party has a few candidates in Chernivtsi Oblast, including Mykola Dovhan, an assistant to the former head of the Chernivtsi Regional Administration of the Party of Regions Mikhailo Papiyev; Mikhailo Zapora of the Romanian-speaking district of Chernivtsi region, which had previously failed to run to the regional council on the Party of Regions ticket; Vitaliy Kysilitsya, who previously failed to get to the Regional Council on the Opposition Bloc Party ticket. Former Chernivtsi Mayor Vitaly Mykhailyshyn also hopes to get into parliament on the Opposition Platform party list.

Servant of the People

The pro-presidential party picked the candidates that have no political experience. Their list in Chernivtsi Oblast includes elementary school teacher Olena Lys, head of the planning department at the Chernivtsi Regional Department of Civil Protection, Maksym Zaremsky, the head of the Chernivtsi Regional Health Center Sport for All Heorhiy Mazurashu and lawyer Valery Bozhyk.

Taras Prokop of OPORA election watchdog says the decentralization efforts, medical reform and the absence of serious infrastructure changes in the region mainly affected the perception of the government by Chernivtsi region residents on the eve of the elections.

Chernivtsi region amalgamated territorial communities hope that the newly formed parliament will create new opportunities for development. Even though the new law on education affected the national minorities in Chernivtsi Oblast earlier, it is no longer considered a threat to educational rights of the Moldovan and Romanian minorities. The is also no public reaction to the newly adopted law on Ukrainian language.