Despite a slim victory, the Orange political forces have not secured any guarantees in the square dance of Ukrainian politics
The pro-Western Orange political forces gained a slight majority in the Sept. 30 parliamentary elections, but that hasn’t guaranteed them anything in the square dance of Ukrainian politics.
In forming the next government, President Viktor Yushchenko and Presidential Secretariat Chair Viktor Baloha will play the role of “kingmaker,” deciding whether Yulia Tymoshenko or Russian-oriented Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych will take power.
Their steps following the election demonstrated the Secretariat isn’t eager to reunite with the Tymoshenko bloc (Byut), partly because Yushchenko needs to find concessions with the Party of Regions, political observers said.
“There needs to be an adequate distribution of power,” said Yuriy Syrotiuk, a political analyst with the Kyiv-based Open Society Foundation, which is financed by the British and American governments.
“President Yushchenko understands this, so he has proposed that everyone be in government and be satisfied.”
Unfortunately for the president, Tymoshenko has repeatedly stated she will not join a government with the Yanukovych-led Party of Regions.
In her compromise bid proposed Oct. 8, Tymoshenko offered her adversaries the chairmanship of the government’s Accounting Chamber, assistant minister positions and assistant chairs of regional state administrations, which is the president’s governing arm in the regions.
Regions’ leaders have dismissed her offer, stating that Tymoshenko hasn’t even secured power to begin making such proposals, and that it was nonsense for the opposition to be in government.
“It makes no sense to bear the responsibility for an Orange coalition’s collapse,” said Mykhailo Chechetov, a Party of Regions parliament member.
Its responses revealed that the Party of Regions is also taking an all-or-nothing approach to forming the coalition government – either being in absolute control or in opposition.
Fragile Our Ukraine
As a result, President Yushchenko, who has called for compromise among the election’s three major winners – Byut, Byut’s coalition partner by prior agreement, the pro-presidential Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense (OUPSD), and the Party of Regions – is caught between a political rock and a hard place.
If Yushchenko returns Yanukovych and the Party of Regions to power, the OUPSD bloc could splinter and lose a significant part of its electorate, observers said.
At least 40 of 73 qualifying Our Ukraine lawmakers signed a letter to Yushchenko opposing his decision to conduct coalition-forming talks with the Party of Regions.
“An Our Ukraine-Party of Regions coalition is impossible, because 90 percent of Our Ukraine is against it,” said Taras Kuzio, president of Kuzio Associates, a Washington consulting firm.
“It would mark the end of Our Ukraine.”
In the event of an Orange coalition, Tymoshenko will characteristically dominate the coalition’s agenda, and the government will likely face an aggressive opposition in the Party of Regions, which represents Ukraine’s biggest business interests.
Moreover, the parliamentary majority captured by the Orange forces in the elections, giving them a paper-thin two-seat majority of 228 parliamentarians in the 450-seat chamber, coupled with their turbulent history, has led observers to doubt their cohesiveness and effectiveness within their potential government.
“Tymoshenko will do things her way, which won’t sit well with [Viktor] Baloha, who controls the levers in the Secretariat,” said Ivan Lozowy, a Kyiv political insider.
Overall, President Yushchenko succeeded in shaking up the political landscape with his command to hold pre-term elections, but not by much.
The Lytvyn factor
Voters dismissed the president’s archenemy, parliament speaker and Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz, after Moroz and his Socialists switched allegiances in parliament from Orange to Blue (Party of Regions) following the March 2006 parliamentary elections, and gaining the speaker’s seat as a reward.
Voters kept the two pro-Western OUPSD and Byut parties and the two Russian-oriented Party of Regions and Communist parties, and replaced the Socialists with the Volodymyr Lytvyn Bloc, a force with close links to former President Leonid Kuchma that casts itself as multi-vectored and moderate.
Although incapable of tipping the scales in coalition-forming, the Lytvyn Bloc would prove valuable in any government.
Were Lytvyn to join his bloc to the Tymoshenko and OUPSD blocs, that would create a so-called “democratic coalition” with a comfortable parliamentary majority of 22 votes.
A coalition between the Party of Regions, OUPSD and the Lytvyn Bloc would create a pro-business government that may take a multi-vectored approach, instead of being divided along pro-Western and pro-Russian lines.
Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk said the Lytvyn Bloc’s best option would be to remain neutral, but it might not have that luxury.
“For businessmen, the parliament is a publicly-traded stock company,” Syrotiuk said.
“They feel with their investment, they should obtain dividends. Moreover, if he remains neutral, he could hurt the career of his influential relatives. Lytvyn will be forced to take sides.”
Lytvyn has better relations with Yanukovych and the Party of Regions than Tymoshenko, observers said, but may end up going Orange anyway.
Opposition-ready
Throughout the election campaign, OUPSD leaders assured the Ukrainian electorate that it would only form a coalition with its stalwart Orange Revolution partner, the Tymoshenko bloc.
After the vote, Orange leaders repeated their vows, promising that a democratic coalition agreement would emerge within a day or two of the final election results, which are expected on Oct. 15.
They said they would base the coalition on a pact signed between the two forces in February, in which they distributed key government posts, giving the prime minister post to the bloc with the most votes.
However, President Yushchenko’s vague Oct. 3 announcement, hinting at inviting the Party of Regions into a broad coalition, sent shivers down the spines of Orange supporters.
Concern immediately spread after the president’s remarks that Our Ukraine would once again court the Party of Regions and play hard-to-get with the Tymoshenko bloc, as it had done last year.
Tymoshenko declared she would rather enter the opposition than form a government with the Party of Regions.
Days later, she offered her concessions, which drew derision from the Party of Regions.
Few political observers believed the Party of Regions would quietly agree to go into the opposition.
Leading up to the election, the Party of Regions set up two stages at Kyiv’s central Independence Square, with its leaders threatening protests and demonstrations to defend their election results if necessary.
Quite mysteriously, the Party of Regions took down one stage, sent its camped-out supporters back home and didn’t rattle its swords, except for a threat that it could have 150 parliament members surrender their mandates and liquidate the next parliamentary convocation, just as the Orange forces had done.
On Oct. 5, the party announced that it would accept the election results without any protest. Days later, Yanukovych announced the Party of Regions would not work with Tymoshenko as prime minister.
Yanukovych’s Oct. 8 statement that the Party of Regions was willing to go into opposition reveals that it doesn’t feel threatened by an Orange government with a slim majority, Syrotiuk said.
“The Regions might be able to attract Our Ukraine votes,” Syrotiuk said.
“They are most interested in economic votes, for which they can find partners in Our Ukraine, but will lose support from the Communists. To pass laws, the Regions will have to find support not only within Our Ukraine and the Tymoshenko blocs, but also the president, who has veto power.”
Regardless of whether she becomes prime minister, Tymoshenko gained the most from the election and demonstrated she is the most relevant and dynamic politician on the Ukrainian political scene, observers said.
“Yulia Tymoshenko saved the Orange Revolution and Yushchenko’s presidency,” Kuzio said.
Tymoshenko earned more than 7.1 million votes, gaining more than 1.5 million supporters since the March 2006 election – more than anyone else.
Her popularity grew in every region, except for the pro-Russian Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
“Everyone is shocked by the election results, particularly the Party of Regions,” Lozowy said.
“They thought they would get the majority with the Communists. But they aren’t taking any radical steps because they are waiting for the president’s next moves.”
