Thirty slates, 30 slogans, 30 campaign manifestos. One Parliament in the making.
Ukraine’s young democracy has proven very good at breeding ‘sofa parties,’ so nicknamed because their members can usually fit on one couch. The new election law approved by Parliament in September was supposed to change that by reserving half of the seats in the next legislature for parties mustering 4 percent of the popular vote, giving them an incentive to unite.
And while coalitions have emerged, other parties have decided to brave the campaign trail on their own. The March 29 election is expected to separate those with mass appeal from the ‘sofas’ destined to become so much deadwood. Before that happens though, Ukraine’s befuddled voters will have to learn to distinguish the People’s Democrats from the Social Democrats and the Social Democrats (united), and the Christian Democratic Party of Ukraine from the Ukrainian Christian Democratic Party.
To further that goal, this survey of the election field will sort through the frontrunners and dark horses. The little-known and the little-liked groups bringing up the rear have been omitted for space reasons.
With so many sound-alike parties struggling for name recognition, it should come as no surprise that the Communists enjoy a sizeable lead in every opinion poll. After all, they have a famous if tarnished brand and a large pool of disgruntled retirees and workers impoverished by Ukraine’s halting trudge toward capitalism. Although their list of candidates lacks prominent names and their slogans differ little from those shouted by millions at May Day rallies in the Soviet era, the Communists are expected to pick up 15 to 20 percent of the popular vote. If that happens, they are sure to retain their status as the leading faction in the Rada, with many more seats than the 90 they won in 1994, when all of the seats in Parliament were contested in first-past-the-post races in local constituencies.
That will provide the party with a platform for pushing its program of a halt to privatization, nationalization of the banking system and the devolution of power to worker councils in the workplace.
Running second behind the Communists is Rukh, the democratic, moderately nationalist grouping formed by dissidents in the heady days of Perestroika to fight for Ukrainian independence.
Then, Rukh seemed destined to overtake the Communists and use its broad appeal to come to power. Rukh leader Vyacheslav Chornovil took 22 percent of the vote in the 1991 presidential election. But the parties’ star has since waned as onetime allies deserted Chornovil after leadership squabbles. It was further hurt when economic decline assumed primacy over the nationalist language and culture agenda pushed by Rukh until recently at the expense of bread-and butter issues.
Still, the party’s built-in base of support, its pro-Western program of moderate economic and political reform and the presence on its slate of Foreign Minister Hennady Udovenko and Environment Minister Yury Kostenko should give it 10 percent of the vote and an increase over the 26 seats it has in the outgoing Rada.
‘[Communists and Rukh] are the only two parties that I can guarantee will have seats in next Parliament,’ says Mykhaylo Pohrebynsky, director of the Kyiv Center for Political and Conflict Studies.
The other ticket with few worries is the bloc of Socialist and Peasant parties led by influential Parliament Speaker Oleksandr Moroz. This coalition sees the Communists as its primary allies in the new Parliament, although it remains unswayed by their cousins’ call to build a new version of the Soviet Union and is a shade more civil in its criticisms of the ruling regime. The Socialists’ standing in the polls has risen by nearly two percentage points to more than 6 percent over the past month, reassuring Economy Minister Viktor Suslov and Deputy Rada Speaker Oleksandr Tkachenko, who are among the party’s top 10 candidates and no longer need to fear that their legislative careers will end on March 29.
Trailing the Socialists and Peasants is a ragtag band of small new centrist parties, many of whose leaders are aware of gloomy warnings by political analysts that their failure to unite could allow leftists to dominate the new Parliament.
But the few efforts to forge a stronger coalition were frustrated by the sort of pride that comes before a fall. Thus negotiations between the Reforms and Order and Forward Ukraine blocs failed at the end of 1997 to produce a broad pro-reform coalition. The two slates have split between them most of Ukraine’s prominent free marketeers. Reforms and Order is led by former Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Pynzenyk and reformist Mariupol Mayor Mykhaylo Pozhyvanov. Forward Ukraine is home to moderate Deputy Parliament Speaker Viktor Musiyaka and former Justice Minister Serhy Holovaty.
Too many centrists considered themselves strong enough to run on their own. ‘The idea of centrist parties uniting is reasonable, but it is unrealistic today,’ said Volodymyr Scherban, who leads the bloc of Liberal and Labor parties. The bloc’s polling numbers have rarely exceeded 3 percent despite its leaders’ claims of strength in the provinces. One thing that distinguishes the Liberals from other small fry that stress economic and business development in their programs is the support of the managers of many of Ukraine’s largest industrial plants. Ninety-six of them dominate the party’s 219-strong ticket, which also includes President Leonid Kuchma’s close ally and aide Dmytro Tabachnyk.
Prominent politicians are particularly crucial to parties that must share names and ideologies with bitter rivals. The Social Democratic Party of Ukraine, headed by Parliament Deputy Yury Buzdugan, and the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united), headed by former Justice Minister Vasyl Onopenko, appear to be equally committed to the principles of European social democracy, and equally adamant in their refusal to cooperate.
‘There is one difference between our parties: we are social democrats; they are not,’ Buzdugan recently told the Kievskie Vedomosti daily.
If that sounds bitter, it might be because Buzdugan’s rivals stand a much better chance of surpassing the 4 percent barrier.
The Social Democrats (united) have been boosted by incessant advertising on the private Inter television channel. Inter’s director, Oleksandr Zinchenko, is running on the party’s ticket. It helps that the slate also includes Ukraine’s first president, Leonid Kravchuk, Yevhen Marchuk, a former prime minister, and, just as importantly, the owner and all of the players of the incredibly popular Dynamo Kyiv soccer club.
Yet the party’s image as a credible opposition force is threatened by the suspicion that its enmity to the government is merely a pose. The business interests of Dynamo Kyiv owner Hryhory Surkis depend partly on the good will of the government, and Surkis has never been particularly critical of the powers that be. In addition, the eighth spot on the SDP(u) ticket is occupied by Presidential Administration Deputy Chief-of-Staff Vasyl Kremin.
Another centrist party’s opposition to the government has never been in doubt, however. That is the Hromada Party led by former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko. His year in power turned Lazarenko from a Kuchma ally into a potential challenger with vast financial resources at his disposal. Not long after Kuchma fired him last summer, Lazarenko unexpectedly joined a small national democratic movement called Hromada and quickly turned it into the primary anti-government force, complete with a shadow cabinet. Hromada was the first party to collect the 200,000 signatures needed to qualify for the elections, and claims to be the largest Ukrainian party with a membership twice that of the Communists. The polls, however, show that Hromada is not even one half as popular.
Hromada’s most bitter rivals, however, belong to the People’s Democratic Party led by current Prime Minister and Kuchma confidant Valery Pustovolitenko. The party includes so many executive branch officials from the regions that it has quickly become labeled ‘the party of power,’ a conscious comparison to Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin’s Our Home is Russia grouping. The party openly (and bravely, given the attitudes of voters) supports Pustovoitenko’s and Kuchma’s government. However, PDP Chairman Anatoly Matvienko wants nothing to do with the ‘party of power’ label.
‘Why is it only PDP that is called ‘the party of power?’ ‘ he asks. ‘If you look at other parties’ lists, you’ll see that we have at least six parties of power.’ Matvienko has a point. The Agrarian Party, a pro-government force created in 1996 to siphon votes from Moroz’s Socialist-Peasant bloc, includes Agriculture Minister Yury Karasyk, his two deputies and Crimean Premier Anatoly Franchuk, whose son was once Kuchma’s son-in-law. Kuchma aides Oleksandr Volkov and Volodymyr Ryzhov are running on the list of the New Economic Policy bloc, while the list of the three-year-old but largely dormant National Economic Development Party includes Transport Minister Valery Cherep, First Deputy Interior Minister Leonid Borodych, and State Oil And Gas Committee First Deputy Chairman Ihor Bakay. Even the Greens, who themselves do not have high hopes for getting into the new Parliament, have found a place for Viktor Tkachuk, an aide to Presidential Administration Chief Yevhen Kushnarev.
