Republican Christian Party formed by members ousted from the URP (03/30/97)

Republican Christian Party formed by members ousted from the URP

by Irene Jarosewich

JERSEY CITY, N.J. - Mykhailo Horyn, Mykola Porovskyi and Mykola Horbal, all of whom had recently been ousted from the Ukrainian Republican Party, announced on March 25 in Kyiv the formation of a new political party, the Republican Christian Party (RCP), according to Respublika news agency. The mission of the RCP is to carry on in the spirit of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group and original Ukrainian Republican Party, and its founding congress will take place on May 1.

The Ukrainian Republican Party (URP), one of the first non-Communist parties to be established in Ukraine during Mykhail Gorbachev's era of glasnost, underwent a radical and fundamental split in its ranks during the past few weeks.

According to URP-Inform, the organization's information bulletin, on March 15 five of the original founders of the Ukrainian Republican Party, Mykhailo Horyn, URP's honorary chairman, as well as National Deputies Bohdan Horyn, Oles Shevchenko, Mr. Horbal and Mr. Porovskyi, were ousted from the party's roster of members by the current party leadership, headed by Bohdan Yaroshynskyi, at a executive council meeting at the Teacher's Building in Kyiv.

In a unanimous decision, the executive council, which acts with full administrative and policy authority between the party's congresses, voted to dismiss the above five, as well as 26 other regional party leaders for "destructive actions, which are geared towards de-stabilizing the situation within the party, and for undermining the image of the URP," reported Respublika.

The ouster occurred after Mykhailo Horyn, Mr. Horbal and Mr. Porovskyi walked out of the executive council meeting as a sign of protest against the direction in which the party is heading under the current leadership, which was elected last year.

Those dismissed from the party have recently accused, on several different occasions, the current leadership of turning towards the extreme political right and instigating conflicts among national-democratic organizations.

According to reports from UNIAN, in a press conference on March 7, Mykhailo Horyn stated that the new leadership of the URP was attempting to "reorient the party from a centrist [organization] into an ultra-nationalist and totalitarian [organization]," and accused the current party chairman, Mr. Yaroshynskyi, of "transforming the internal party democracy into a party of one-person authoritarian rule."

Mr. Horyn had been the chairman of the URP for several years, and, since Ukraine's independence, had defined the party's role as "nation-building" and increasing Ukrainian consciousness within the power structures of the new state. He advocated working within the system, in a coalition with other centrist, national-democratic parties and organizations.

A conflict had been developing within the URP as the leadership of the party was transferred from the founders of the URP to generally younger members who articulated a pronounced preference for alignments with political organizations that represent the extreme political right.

The URP was established in April 1990, and included among its founders many members of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, an activist, human-rights watch organization that had been established in 1976. Well-known former political prisoners such as Stepan Khmara, Levko Lukianenko, Mykhailo Horyn, Mr. Horbal, Levko Horokhivsky and Mr. Shevchenko spent decades in the Soviet gulag as punishment for protesting Soviet totalitarian rule.

The URP experienced its first split in 1992, when Mr. Khmara established a separate faction, and then split from the URP to form the Ukrainian Conservative Republican Party.

In response to questions about the most recent split and the dismissal of well-known URP leaders, Mr. Yaroshynskyi stated at a press conference on March 19 that the political strategy proposed by the ousted members meant that the URP would have remained a minor "pocket change" party. Accoording to Respublika, he added that "the talents of yesterday's destroyers of the (Soviet) empire are no longer needed. Now we need to have other, more constructive talents."

Mr. Yaroshynskyi continued that the present leadership of Ukraine, including President Kuchma, "cannot solve the many issues of military, external and internal affairs" that confront Ukraine, therefore the present position of the URP is to be in "strident opposition" to President Kuchma and his administration.

Mr. Yaroshynskyi spoke in admiration of the recent victory of Slava Stetsko, the head of the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, in a parliamentary by-election and confirmed that the Ukrainian Republican Party would now work in a political coalition with Ms. Stetsko and other organizations in the recently formed political bloc, the National Front.

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