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 submitted by local Ukrainian journalists. The project is supported by the National Endowment for Democracy. The donor has no influence on the content.
Ukrainian politics have long been driven by east-west divisions. But this political season could be different according to pollsters tracking the presidential campaign in Lviv Oblast, in western Ukraine.
Since Ukraine gained independence, Lviv Oblast has been a bellwether for western Ukraine’s political mood. While no member of the Lviv political elite has ever held the office of president, or even prime minister, Lviv city and oblast have always played a prominent role in Ukraine’s political life. Eastern Galicia and its capital are a powerbase of Ukrainian statehood that can both help unite Ukraine and draw it closer to Europe.
The dissident and political activity of Vyacheslav Chornovil, one of the initiators of the Declaration of Ukraine’s Independence, was nurtured in Lviv. In the early 1990s, Chornovil even headed the Lviv Regional Council. Current Verkhovna Rada Speaker Andriy Parubiy and Deputy Prime Minister Stepan Kubiv also began their professional and political careers in Lviv Oblast.
“When we talk about Lviv Oblast voters, patriotism and support of Ukrainian statehood are the main features of the local political culture,” says Antonina Kolodiy, a political expert from Lviv National University. “This is also accompanied by a certain conservatism: the population of the region tends to support the ruling power – but only if it does not jeopardize Ukrainian statehood.”
At the same time, Lviv Oblast’s electorate is known not only for its ideological leanings but also for high political engagement. The turnouts for the last two parliamentary elections were 67 percent and 70 percent respectively, and in the first rounds of the 2010 and 2014 presidential races – 74 percent and 78 percent, according to the Central Election Commission. Since 2012, Lviv Oblast has consistently led the country in voter turnout, boosting its influence on election results.
Last minute choice
But in the 2014 presidential election, for the first time in its history, Lviv Oblast opted for the same candidate as voters in eastern Ukraine. That was partly because Lviv voters wanted to bring to an end the political instability that had developed since ex-President Viktor Yanukovych fled the country in February 2014.
Another reason was an extremely low turnout in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts (15 percent and 39 percent respectively) where the so-called anti-terrorist operation had already begun, and most of the polling stations were blocked by Russian-led forces.
On the eve of the 2019 campaign, voters’ preferences are less clear, and as in the east, there is no universally favored candidate.
According to the polls, the three top presidential candidates in Lviv Oblast are Anatoly Grytsenko (Civic Position), Petro Poroshenko (Bloc of Petro Poroshenko) and Yulia Tymoshenko (Batkivshchyna). Polling firm Rating Group in its “Portraits of the Regions” study showed Grytsenko with 12.5 percent, while incumbent President Poroshenko was second with 13 percent, and Tymoshenko led with 14 percent.
Almost 9 percent of those polled said they would vote for Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi (Editor’s note: Sadovyi has withdrawn from the race in favor of Grytsenko on March 1), and other 8 percent for Ukrainian rock star and Okean Elzy frontman Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, who on Jan. 28 announced he was not seeking election. The field rounds out with almost 6 percent for comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, 5 percent for Oleksandr Shevchenko from the Ukrop party, and 3.5 percent for Oleh Lyashko of the Radical Party. Other candidates got less than 3 percent.
A January survey by the Lviv-based Center for the Study of Public Opinion Sotsinform had Poroshenko leading the race with 19.5 percent of the voters who confirmed they were going to vote in the election. Grytsenko was supported by 12.3 percent of the voters, and Tymoshenko – by 10.6 percent. Zelenskiy had 9.5 percent of support, and Sadovyi had 7.3 percent.
In Lviv Oblast, the voters’ support is as fragmentized as in other regions. In Odesa and Kharkiv Oblast, the top three candidates are Boyko, Tymoshenko, and Zelenskiy; in Kyiv Oblast – Tymoshenko, Poroshenko, and Zelenskiy.
A December poll by Rating Group showed at least 15.6 percent of those polled in Lviv Oblast intend to vote, but are still undecided who to vote for. In Odesa Oblast, the share is 14 percent, in Kharkiv – 27 percent, and in Kyiv – 24 percent. The candidates and their election headquarters in each oblast will have to work hard in the coming months to win over potential voters.
Candidates’ support
Voters’ preferences in Lviv Oblast mostly reflect the balance of power that has developed in the region since the 2014 parliamentary elections and, to a greater extent, the 2015 local elections. Nearly all the favorites in the coming vote are representatives of the parties in Lviv Oblast councils.
Petro Poroshenko: The Bloc of Petro Poroshenko ‘Solidarity’
In the 2014 parliamentary elections, 12 lawmakers from Lviv Oblast were elected to Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, in single-member districts. Five of the 12 ended up in the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko, including the brothers Bohdan and Yaroslav Dubnevych, along with Andriy Lopushansky, Andriy Kit, and Oksana Yurynets.
Before 2014, these lawmakers were not affiliated with the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko. Bohdan and Yaroslav Dubnevych were lawmakers of the Lviv Regional Council representing the Vidrodzhenya (Revival) party, while Oksana Yurynets was with the UDAR faction. Andriy Kit led a few agricultural enterprises in Lviv Oblast. Only two of the lawmakers mentioned above were Verkhovna Rada members: Andriy Lopushansky in Viktor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine faction in 2006-2007, and Yaroslav Dubnevych, who was a part of the UDAR faction in 2012-2014.
During the 2015 local elections, the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko was the most popular political force among voters in Lviv Oblast (including politicians who previously belonged to the local UDAR party branches). According to the results of the vote, the pro-presidential party won 24 percent of the seats and created the largest faction in Lviv Regional Council.
The president’s party is the only one with lawmakers in all city and district councils in Lviv Oblast. In 16 out of 29 such councils, the ruling party is the largest faction. In total, it has 19 percent of all the seats in the oblast, which makes it a strong political force.
However, in November, the OPORA election watchdog published the results of their research on the party affiliations of public officials of the regional and district administrations. According to their findings, only seven out of 125 officials in Lviv Oblast are officially affiliated with the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko.
Andriy Sadovyi: Samopomich party
Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadoviy created the Samopomich party in 2012. Before that, it had been a non-profit organization in Lviv for eight years. The party first took part in the parliamentary elections in 2014 and successfully passed the five-percent threshold, granting 32 seats in parliament. With two single-member district winners (one of which was Iryna Podolyak from Lviv), Samopomich then formed the third largest parliamentary faction (34 seats) in the Verkhovna Rada.
The growth of the newly formed party continued during the 2015 local elections. Sadovyi then won the mayoral elections in Lviv for the third time. However, it was his first time running as a leader of a political party (before that he was a member of Viktor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine party, and he won his second term as a representative of the Republican Christian Party).
Samopomich also received 17 percent of the votes for Lviv Regional Council, becoming the second largest party. The party’s lawmakers are represented in 27 out of 29 district and City Council in Lviv Oblast. In total, Samopomich holds 13.5 percent of all the seats there. It is also the second most popular political force in the oblast.
However, if it wasn’t for the city of Lviv, Sadovyi’s party would have significantly fewer seats and would be only the third biggest in the oblast. While Lviv City Council is dominated by Samopomich, with 37.5 percent of the seats, the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko and Batkivshchyna have more powerful representation in Lviv Oblast councils.
Sadovyi and his party saw the difference between his political clout in Lviv versus the rest of Ukraine in 2016-2017, in a chain of events that started with a fire at the city’s main landfill, causing the collapse of a garbage heap. Three emergency workers were killed and a fourth was declared dead in 2017, the body never having been found. Sadovyi promised to close the landfill during his first mayoral term and by fall 2016 it was closed.
Lviv ended up with garbage piling up on its streets. Lviv tried to send its garbage to other cities, but other local authorities refused to accept it. Central government entered the fray, accusing Sadovyi of mismanagement, with Sadovyi in turn claiming the powers in Kyiv didn’t give Lviv the option of an alternate landfill. He further claimed that Kyiv was orchestrating local protests to block shipments of Lviv’s garbage to other cities’ landfills.
Sadovyi got responses from Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman and Lviv Regional Council head Oleg Synyutka. Synyutka argued that regional administration needed to take care of the issue. Sadovyi called this solution an “ultimatum.” Garbage from Lviv is now disposed of around the oblast, as well as being sent to other cities.
Sadovyi withdrew from the presidential election on March 1 in favor of Grytsenko. The two are discussing joining forces for the October parliamentary elections as well.
Yulia Tymoshenko – Batkivshchyna faction
Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party has made the greatest progress in terms of electoral support in Lviv Oblast in recent years.
During the 2014 parliamentary elections Batkivshchyna gained almost 5 percent of the votes in Lviv region (finishing sixth among all parties in the oblast) under the proportional voting system. The party won almost the same share of votes in Zaporizhzhya and Odesa oblasts. However, Batkivshchyna won none of the oblast’s single-member constituencies for the Verkhovna Rada then.
Batkivshchyna’s position in the region improved in the 2015 local elections. In the larger districts and cities of Lviv Oblast, the party holds 12 percent of all seats. However, they have no representatives in Lviv City Council.
Batkivshchyna was helped by the oblast’s decentralization process. Since 2015, at least 40 “merged communities” were created – villages and towns brought together in common administrative units as a part of ongoing territorial and administrative reform. The largest percentage (16 percent) of the merged community leaders belong to Batkivshchyna, according to Central Election Commission. UKROP, which ranks second among the parties in merged communities in Lviv Oblast, has slightly less than half as many seats.
Both Tymoshenko and the head of the Lviv branch of the party, Mykhailo Tsymbalyuk, argue that this is evidence of an “undisputed victory” and voter trust. However, most of the merged community lawmakers were self-nominated (46 percent). And only some 343,577 people live in the new administrative units, or about 14 percent of the population of the oblast.
According to the OPORA election watchdog, Tymoshenko’s party has the largest network of branch offices in Lviv Oblast among all political forces represented in parliament.
Anatoliy Grytsenko – Civic Position party
For former Defense Minister Grytsenko and his political force, Lviv Oblast electorate might be the one of the most loyal in Ukraine.
During the previous presidential elections, Grytsenko ended up in fourth place with 6 percent. As for the parliamentary elections, his Civic Position party garnered 4 percent of the vote – its second best result after Cherkasy Oblast.
The 2015 local elections were not a great success for Civic Position in Lviv Oblast, but they showed the strength of the party in the region. Grytsenko’s party became the fifth largest faction in Lviv Regional Council, with 10 percent of its seats.
At the same time, Grytsenko ran for Lviv mayor, finishing third. However, Civic Position still has a major representation in Lviv City Council: 11 percent of its seats, and the secretary of the council, Anatoly Zabarylo, is a party member.
Grytsenko in May 2018 held a joint meeting with voters in Lviv together with Dmytro Dobrodomov, an independent lawmaker and People’s Control Party leader. They announced the creation of a “common platform for democratic opposition” to “prevent the usurpation of power by (President) Petro Poroshenko and the revenge of pro-Russian forces.” But last fall Dobrodomov announced his own run for the presidency.
Grytsenko said in 2018 that he was consulting with Samopomich and its leader Sadovyi on joining forces ahead of the presidential and parliamentary elections. However, both Grytsenko and Sadovyi are registered as separate presidential election candidates.
Zabarylo heads Grytsenko’s election headquarters in Lviv Oblast.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy – Servant of the People
Ukrainian showman and comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, one of the founders of the Kvartal 95 show, began his fight for Lviv’s vote by registering his group “Zelenskiy team in Lviv” on Facebook, Telegram and Instagram. However, local politicians have not said they will support this candidate or start working with its headquarters.
Zelenskiy is definitely popular among one group of the respondents in Lviv Oblast – young people, said Natalia Zaitseva-Chipak, who heads the Center for the Study of Public Opinion Sotsiinform. At least 21 percent of respondents aged 18-29 would vote for him, according to the center’s December study. The closest competitor in this age group – Vakarchuk can have counted on 12 percent support.
According to a report by the OPORA election watchdog issued last year, none of the parties in Lviv Oblast has an overall majority in local government. Therefore, no political party can force through its polices in the oblast.
Moreover, political forces in different councils can simultaneously be both allies and opponents. Civic Position and Samopomich in Lviv City Council often vote together, while these same parties are in opposition to each other in Lviv Regional Council. Therefore, from the very start of this year’s presidential campaign, none of the candidates could have hoped for unconditional support in Lviv Oblast.
Fighting for votes
The Kyiv Post studied the reports of political parties for the first three quarters of 2018 on the website of the National Anti-Corruption Agency, and found that last year the Lviv branches of the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko, Batkivshchyna, Samopomich, and Civic Position received no large donations from individuals or organizations. The newly former Servant of the People party has no regional representation at all.
The Lviv branch of the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko topped up its balance with Hr 1.99 million ($71,000). The funds came from the state budget, as foreseen under the law on financing political parties.
The Lviv Oblast branch of Batkivshchyna has not received any funds from the state budget for the past year (although the national Batkivshchyna party accepted money from the state). However, the Lviv regional branch of the party increased its funds by almost Hr 384,000 ($13,700) from private contributions.
The Lviv branch of Samopomich party recorded zero income for the first three quarters of 2018. Civic Position party in Lviv Oblast only got Hr 10,500 ($380) from private donors or organizations.
“The parties and politicians in Lviv Oblast mainly rely on support from small- and medium-sized businesses,” Taras Rad, an OPORA election watchdog analyst told the Kyiv Post.
According to a study by OPORA.Lviv, the main candidates in the presidential election began their political campaigns in Lviv Oblast at the end of summer – far earlier than the official campaign launch scheduled for Dec. 31. They promoted their parties mainly by traveling to the oblast, purchasing billboards, advertising, and increasing the visibility of candidates on local television.
According to Rad, the regional and local branches of political parties have little participation in this process. All the outdoor and media ads are sponsored by the central offices of the parties rather than their local branches. The regional and city branches of the parties were more engaged in preparing for the merged communities election that took place in December 2018 and forming electoral commissions for the presidential elections in Lviv Oblast.
The deputy head of the Center for Political Studies of the Lviv National University, Lyubomyr Skochylyas, said that the regional branches of the parties have a limited role during the presidential campaign.
“Presidential elections are nationwide,” Skochylyas said. “Therefore, it is unacceptable for local party branches to act independently. The role of local teams of political forces is to carry out tasks from central offices. At the same time, they will inform the main headquarters of the candidates’ about voters’ preferences and how the campaign is going in the regions.”
According to Skochylyas, local voters’ ideal candidate has two key tasks: securing Ukrainian statehood from Russian aggression, and improving the social and economic situation. Skochylyas said the incumbent president scores well with voters in the first task. However, increased labor migration and disappointment with the economy boosts Tymoshenko’s popularity with Lviv voters.
“Voters in Lviv Oblast are perfectly aware of the pluses and negatives of candidates like Petro Poroshenko and Yulia Tymoshenko,” Skochylyas said. “Voters’ doubts over the two main candidates could potentially increase the chances of other candidates in Lviv Oblast. People will look for those who are not involved in the deterioration of the socio-economic situation but who will not change the geopolitical course Ukraine is following now.”
This situation has bolstered Grytsenko’s support in Lviv Oblast. The same applies to Zelenskiy, who could potentially win 5-7 percent of the local vote.
“Lviv politicians often win fewer votes from the local electorate compared to national figures. It’s because in their region they are often more criticized than others. For example, Sadovyi has a much better reputation nationally than he has in Lviv, where he is mayor,” said Kolodiy of Lviv National University who argues that the local electorate doesn’t support the candidates just because they come from the area. This explains Sadovyi’s rather low level of support here.
The survey of the Rating Group showed that Tymoshenko has the greatest support in Lviv Oblast. However, most respondents – about a quarter – believe the incumbent president Poroshenko will win the election, regardless of their electoral preferences.
Mykhailo Drapak is a local journalist in Lviv, Ukraine. He can be reached at [email protected].
