Higher social payments and concerns over abuse of office were among the issues to emerge with the start of campaigning ahead of early Rada elections
Higher social payments and concerns over abuse of office were among the major issues to have emerged with the start of political campaigning ahead of early parliamentary elections next month, as Ukraine’s major parties held their conventions in Kyiv between Aug. 4 and 7.
Delegates voted on candidates for electoral lists and approved their parties’ campaign programs ahead of the Sept. 30 vote.
Four of the five parties in the last parliament are poised to return to the Rada, according to July polls.
Both the Regions party, led by Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, and the Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense (OUPSD) bloc, loyal to President Viktor Yushchenko, went through a symbolic cleansing of their ranks by not including certain controversial figures in their lists. Most notably, the Regions left out Oleh Kalashnikov, a deputy who was accused of assaulting a television camera crew last year.
Nevertheless, the three leading political forces, including the Byut bloc of vehement opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, all have affluent businessmen running for seats in the Rada.
Rinat Akhmetov, for example, told journalists that he plans on working as a rank-and-file member in the next of parliament. With the lucky number seven spot on the Regions list, the man considered to be Ukraine’s richest is all but guaranteed a seat in parliament, as is Byut billionaire Kostyantin Zhevago.
The Regions list boasted more businessmen than other parties. The OUPSD list listed no known billionaires, but a handful of multimillionaires are running for the Rada from the pro-presidential bloc.
Apart from personnel changes, the parties and blocs presented their programs at their conventions for curing what ails Ukraine. Differences among the parties’ campaign platforms range from foreign to language policies, but most are similar on issues of domestic policies and promises of higher social spending.
Populist programs, strong personalities
While the Regions party blamed the “Orange populists” for the poor state of affairs in the country, most parties can be accused of populism, one political analyst said.
“All the political party programs are the same, only their slogans and leaders are different,” Kost Bondarenko, a political analyst with the Kyiv-based Gorshenin Institute, said.
“Ukraine is a social democratic country and most party programs are populist,” he said. “People will be choosing between slogans and leaders. These elections will be highly personified.”
The leaders of Ukraine’s three main parties – Yushchenko, Yanukovych and Tymoshenko – are expected to clash in the 2009 presidential elections. Winning these parliamentary elections could propel either Yanukovych or Tymoshenko into the prime minister post. These elections could also serve as a springboard for a strong showing in a future presidential poll.
Baby-bonus bidding battle
One campaign promise that all of the parties were quick to deliver was higher one-time payments for every newborn child. The Hr 8,500 ($1,700) incentive, aimed to curb the country’s declining population rate, was introduced in 2005 shortly after the Orange Revolution.
The Regions were first to up the ante, promising that they would pay Hr 11,700 for every newborn. A second child would secure a family Hr 25,000 ($5,000) and every child thereafter would earn Hr 50,000 in assistance.
At her bloc’s Aug. 5 convention, Tymoshenko backed the plan to boost social support.
“We’ll accept [the Regions’ proposed] numbers so that there are more of our children than those who want to give up independence by entering some new Soviet spaces,” she said sarcastically, dubbing Yanukovych’s Regions as a political force that wants to steer Ukraine closer into Russia’s orbit.
Speaking at the OUPSD convention Aug. 7, Our Ukraine leader Vyacheslav Kyrylenko said that when the democratic forces come to power, they would increase one-time baby bonuses to Hr 12,000 ($2,400).
“We’ll introduce Hr 15,000 in assistance for the birth of a second child and Hr 25,000 for the third. And that will be fair,” he said.
Viktor Lysytskyi, an economist and former Cabinet minister, said Ukraine’s economy can, generally, afford some “constructive populism.”
“The economy is growing, and there are no reasons why social payments should not rise,” Lysytskyi said.
Yet few of the party platforms stressed adoption of key measures, such as tax reforms, required to reduce poverty by boosting growth of small- to medium-sized businesses.
Administrative resources
The Regions party added 50 new names to its electoral lists, including legislators who defected from other political parties to join the governing coalition, including Serhiy Holovaty, formerly of Our Ukraine. Some of the newcomers joined Regions after being appointed ministers to the Yanukovych government.
In total, there are 18 of 28 ministers from the Yanukovych cabinet on the Regions’ list. There are also 14 deputy ministers running for the Regions in these elections. In the case of the Justice Ministry, the minister and his two deputies are running for the Regions.
The participation of so many ministers was criticized by the head of the Presidential Secretariat, Viktor Baloha.
On April 6, Baloha said, “the Regions are counting on limitless administrative resource” to influence elections, referring to the levers of influence available to government officials. Baloha, who is also campaign chief for the pro-Yushchenko OUPSD, said that no employee of the Presidential Secretariat is a candidate in these elections.
“The role of a minister is purely political and not governmental, as the so-called opposition is trying to imply,” said Elena Bondarenko, a Regions parliament member and candidate.
“Moreover, all ministers will be on holidays for the duration of the campaign,” said Bondarenko.
As the Post went to press, only four ministers had publicly indicated they would take official leaves of absence.
“There is nothing wrong with ministers on the lists,” said Oleksandr Chernenko, spokesman for the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, the country’s largest election watchdog NGO. “But the law clearly prohibits officials from using their office to support a particular political party.”
Bondarenko said that the Regions have their own complaints to make about how presidential resources are being used for elections. She said that “violations include placing billboardsusing administrative resources,instructing thearmy to place presidential ads and vote for a specific party, and replacing regional governors and appointing them as chiefs of the polling stations.”
Communists capitalize
The Communists were first to have their candidates registered by the Central Election Commission on Aug. 6. The top five Communist candidates on that party’s list are its perpetual leader Petro Symonenko, followed by a young male miner, a successful young female farmer, the head of the Soviet war veterans association, and Health Minister Yuriy Haydayev.
Only 21 Communists qualified for seats in parliament in the March 2006 elections, when nearly 1 million voters gave the Leninists less than 4 percent of the popular vote.
In July, polls showed that support for the Communists has grown as high as 6 percent across the country, placing them within reach of gaining more than 30 seats in the next parliament.
The Socialist Party held its convention the same day as the Regions. Party leader Oleksandr Moroz pledged to do everything possible to make sure elections would not take place. Nevertheless, the Socialists went through the process of nominating a party list.
Media magnate Andriy Derkach decided to cast his lot with the Regions for these elections: The man who controls a national television, radio and newspaper empire was elected to parliament on the Socialist ticket in 2006.
The Socialists won 33 seats in the last elections, when 1.44 million voters delivered the party 5.7 percent of the popular vote. But support for the Socialists has waned considerably, with some July polls showing the Socialists with less than the 3 percent necessary to qualify for seats in the Rada.
Moroz’s attempts to reconvene the Rada have been futile. On Aug. 7, the Regions ignored the speaker’s order for legislators to gather in the session hall for the second time in as many weeks.
