The first round of the presidential election in government-controlled regions of Luhansk Oblast has demonstrated that the eastern Donbas region’s traditionally distinct political culture persists. But it should also remind us of the region’s surprising ideological diversity — and its potential for change.
I have lived in Severodonetsk, the temporary capital of Luhansk Oblast since 2014, working in the humanitarian aid sector. I did not cast a vote on March 31, but I have tried hard to understand the election’s meaning.
One of the key stories of this election at the national level is how political newcomer Volodymyr Zelenskiy swept the country’s southeast, the heartland of the now-defunct Party of Regions and its successor, the Opposition Bloc.
Before the election, the Opposition Bloc split into two factions: Opposition Platform – Za Zhyttia, which ran former Energy Minister Yuriy Boyko as its presidential candidate, and the Opposition Bloc, which ran lawmaker Oleksandr Vilkul.
Boyko’s territory was confined to the fringes, including towns along the Russian and Moldovan borders and, most prominently, the entirety of the government-controlled Donbas. The effect was strongest in Luhansk Oblast, where Boyko had pluralities or majorities in almost every polling station and took 44 percent of the vote.
The Russia-friendly opposition’s vote share rises to 53 percent if we add the votes for Vilkul. Compare this to the southeastern oblast of Odesa, where both candidates took less than a third of the vote, or Dnipropetrovsk, where they took less than a fourth.
This was a major rebound in Luhansk Oblast for the Opposition Bloc compared to the 2014 presidential elections, when Petro Poroshenko won as many votes (33 percent) as three candidates from the recently collapsed Party of Regions and one from the Communist Party combined.
But the 2014 vote was anomalous: all the region’s cities were under armed Russian control and so the voter turnout of 10 percent came entirely from the oblast’s rural north. So the party’s much stronger showing in 2019 can be partially explained by the return of four industrial cities to the voting pool with their key constituencies of factory workers and urban pensioners.
Living in Luhansk Oblast, it has been clear to me that the Opposition Bloc — both branches of the original party — puts more emphasis on classically Donbas economic issues than other parties. Boyko and other party leaders frequently warn of “de-industrialization” and vocally oppose the full economic blockade of separatist- and Russian-controlled territories imposed in March 2017.
There is push-back to their narrative: the liberal journalist and blogger Denys Kazansky points out that the bankruptcy and scrapping of numerous factories in Luhansk Oblast began under Party of Regions rule before the war, and continues today under the Opposition Bloc. But, at least rhetorically, the party projects an image of standing up for the oblast’s traditional economy at a time when industrial exports are at 6 percent of pre-war levels.
The bloc also did very well in the same rural northern districts that handed victory to Poroshenko in 2014. This part of the oblast is associated with the Sloboda Ukraine region, with deep agrarian roots and widespread use of the Ukrainian language or its admixture with Russian, surzhik.
One local businesswoman explained to me that the party has an excellent “ground game” in remote county seats and villages, conducting deep outreach to influential residents who can influence their neighbors. And the bloc played up an issue that deeply concerns villagers — the proposed privatization of agricultural land, which is supported by Poroshenko and the International Monetary Fund. Some Ukrainians believe this ambitious reform would pump billions into the country’s economy and allow rural residents to profit from their only serious asset, but rural Luhansk Oblast residents deeply distrust this plan. Their incomes have plunged since the start of the war, and they fear outsiders buying up farmland that locals cannot afford.
But while the bloc demonstrated that it still commands Luhansk Oblast, we should not forget that nearly one in two residents picked candidates from other parties. The EuroMaidan Revolution, the collapse of the Party of Regions and social upheaval caused by the war has opened up political space for new actors. The bloc still holds majorities in all city councils and most district councils, but faces an opposition made up of diverse liberal and populist parties, and not just Communists — as was often the case before the war.
In 2014, Poroshenko was able to use that political space in the presidential election, but had to attract diverse voters. They included both pro-Maidan liberals and conservatives who hoped he would make a pragmatic businessman’s deal to end the war.
Inevitably, Poroshenko had to disappoint at least one of these two groups. His ramping up of the “anti-terrorist operation,” push for neo-liberal reforms, and advocacy for clerical independence for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church would certainly have turned off many conservative Luhansk Oblast voters. But the problem is that he seems to have frustrated some liberal supporters as well.
I spoke with a veteran and Lysychansk city council member Vitaliy Shvedov, who helped establish the Luhansk Oblast branch of Poroshenko’s political party in 2014. Three years later, Shvedov left the party and in March he came out publicly for Zelenskiy because “Poroshenko put his trust in the local elites and former Party of Regions members instead of building his own movement.”
Not all 2014 Poroshenko supporters agree with Shvedov. Among my acquaintances are many who still consider him the steadiest manager of the nation’s economy and the war effort. They are diverse, including oblast officials, entrepreneurs, small factory owners and frontline volunteers. But together such voters only delivered 6.7 percent of Luhansk Oblast’s vote to Poroshenko on March 31st — a fifth of his 2014 showing.
Poroshenko’s slump in popularity could have led to an even larger margin for the Opposition Bloc. But in stepped Volodymyr Zelenskiy, filling a key ideological niche. He has vocally supported the Ukrainian army, attracting voters turned off by such stunts as Yury Boyko’s “peacemaking” campaign trip to Moscow. But he speaks Russian and is sufficiently irreverent about Maidan to attract Donbas voters who were cool on the revolution. This allowed him to pull votes away not only from the sitting president but also from the old-brand populists Yulia Tymoshenko and Oleh Lyashko, both of whom had miserable showings despite a strong party presence in the oblast.
Voters in the government-controlled portion of Luhansk Oblast will not see the Opposition Bloc on their second-round ballot, but they will feel its echo. The region’s traditional ruling force demonstrated it can still bring out the vote and dominate the region’s politics. If either Poroshenko or Zelenskiy has time to court Luhansk Oblast voters before April 21, they would do well to take a page from the Oppobloc playbook and focus on the region’s war-ravaged economy, in city and village alike. If Ukraine’s next president can make real progress on this front, he may find that the Donbas is prepared for even more political diversity.
Brian Milakovsky is from Maine and has been working in the humanitarian sector in eastern Ukraine since 2015. Before Russia’s war on Ukraine, he worked on forest conservation issues.
