Pre-election season begins, candidates announce intentions (11/02/97)

Pre-election season begins, candidates announce intentions

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - With the pre-election season in Ukraine in full bloom, political maneuverings by political candidates and parties for the presidency and seats in the Verkhovna Rada have begun in earnest.

On October 26, nearly two years before the presidential elections, President Leonid Kuchma said he was throwing his hat into the ring, or perhaps only half of it. He told the "Pislia Mova" news program that he would run for president if the Ukrainian economy began to improve and forecast that "the economic situation will improve by the time of the next elections in October 1999."

However, three days later, the president's chief of staff, Yevhen Kushniarov explained that the president did not officially declare his candidacy during the interview on the news program. "I would say that it is a bit early to talk about the presidential elections. The president merely wanted the people to understand his plans. It is important that the people understand the long-term strategy of the president of the country," said Mr. Kushniarov.

Yevhen Marchuk, Ukraine's former prime ministers under the Kuchma administration, who was also the chief of the KGB of Ukraine before the demise of the Soviet Union, showed no qualms about an early start in his quest to lead Ukraine into the 21st century. The day after the president made his muddled declaration, Mr. Marchuk officially announced his intention to run in 1999. He said that President Kuchma's statement "freed his future rivals of the need to be tight-lipped about their intentions."

He said that no matter what the president hopes, "the present administration is unable to take the country out of the [economic] crisis." He also said the president's administration is itself in crisis. "When a decision is made based on circumstances, rather than the need to influence them, it is evidence that the power crisis has reached the president."

Mr. Kushniarov, in turn, criticized Mr. Marchuk's decision to run. "With his background, he has no moral right to run for president. The aftereffects of the agency he ran are still being felt today," said Mr. Kushniarov in reference to Mr. Marchuk's former position as head of the KGB of the former Ukrainian SSR.

Mr. Marchuk is supported by Ukraine's first president, Leonid Kravchuk. The two joined forces on October 20 at the convention of the United Social Democratic Party. They will run as the top two candidates on the party's slate in the Verkhovna Rada elections scheduled for March 1998.

In a week filled with political positioning in preparation for elections, the other declared presidential hopeful, Serhii Holovatyi, along with several prominent members of Parliament announced on October 29 the formation of a coalition of the Christian National Union and the Christian Democratic Parties.

Other prominent members who make up its slate are Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Viktor Musiaka; National Deputy Viktor Shyshkin, former procurator general during the Kravchuk administration; National Deputy Volodymyr Stretovych, chairman of the Parliament's Committee on Judicial Policy and Court and Judicial Reform; and National Deputy Hryhorii Omelchenko, chairman of the Verkhovna Rada's Committee on Corruption and Organized Crime, as well as 17 members of the Reform faction of the Ukrainian Parliament.

Mr. Omelchenko said the fight with corruption and organized crime is a major component of their platform. "Our goal is to implement a system of honesty, of integrity and morality within society, but specifically within government structures," he explained.

The coalition members present at the press conference agreed that they would welcome the newly created Reform and Order Party headed by ex-Vice Prime Minister of Economic Reform Viktor Pynzenyk into their bloc if the party made serious overtures to join.

The next day, another major player on the political scene whom most political pundits consider a presidential hopeful, and also a former prime minister in the Kuchma administration, Pavlo Lazarenko, took the top position in the slate of the newly formed Hromada Party.

The party, formed on September 27, is an offshoot of the cultural organization of the same name. It also comprises members of the Yednist faction of the Verkhovna Rada, including Ukraine's most renowned businesswoman, Yulia Tymoshenko. She, along with former Ambassador to the United States Oleh Bilorus and the popular Ukrainian singer Dmytro Hnatiuk, is in the top 10 on the Hromada candidate list for the Verkhovna Rada.

At an October 30 press conference Mr. Lazarenko said is premature to reveal any intention to run for president. "I will only have the moral right, the confidence of the populace, after we have successfully completed our campaign for elections to the Verkhovna Rada," said Mr. Lazarenko. "Today, I believe it is a bit premature and even stupid, if I may say so, to be making plans for the presidential elections."

The leader of Hromada also announced that his party was officially stepping into opposition to the Kuchma administration and forming a shadow cabinet, which would be led by Ms. Tymoshenko.

The National Democratic Party of Ukraine, which has become a major player on Ukraine's political turf since the election of President Kuchma in 1994 and with whom he is most closely associated, announced on October 27 that Prime Minister Valerii Pustovoitenko would head its ticket for the elections to Parliament. Mr. Pustovoitenko is also considered a potential presidential candidate. Other members elected to their candidate list are former Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Ivan Pliushch, Kharkiv Oblast leader Oleh Diomin, Deputies Mykhailo Syrota, Oleksander Yemets and Volodymyr Filenko, as well as prominent businessman and president of the Ukrainian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Anatolii Kinakh.

Historically, the two strongest political organizations in Ukraine, the Communist Party and the center-right leaning Rukh, have also held political conventions, with only one small surprise. At its seventh congress, which ended on October 29, Rukh voted in its Verkhovna Rada slate of candidates, which has Viacheslav Chornovil at the top of the list. But a surprise candidate for the Verkhovna Rada was Nina Matvienko, the doyenne of Ukrainian folk music. She, along with former Olympic champion Valerii Borzov, just recently joined the party.

The Communists are laying low as the pre-election season begins. They held an uneventful congress on October 11, re-electing Petro Symonenko as their chairman and announcing their continued official opposition to the government.

Oleksander Moroz, chairman of the Verkhovna Rada and a leader of the Socialist Party, while speaking at the Communist Party congress, said he sees the need for leftist forces to unite. He proposed that an agreement be concluded among the Communists, the Socialists and the Agrarians for a single election bloc for the parliamentary elections. The Socialist Party is one of the few parties yet to hold their political convention.

Political maneuvering also has taken place in the last weeks on the other side of the political spectrum. On October 13 the Ukrainian Republican Party, the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, the Ukrainian Conservative Party and the Conservative Republican Party announced the formation of a voting bloc called the National Front. Prominent candidates that head their ticket are Deputies Stepan Khmara, Slava Stetsko and Mykhailo Ratushnyi, along with former Ambassador to Canada Lev Lukianenko.

The radical right organization UNA-UNSO has also made it known that it will field a bloc of candidates. The group was finally re-registered as a political organization in late September after having its status revoked by Ukraine's Ministry of Justice for carrying on paramilitary maneuvers. The organization has said that it will field a slate of 100 candidates. A study it conducted in late September showed that about 12 percent of Ukrainian voters could support an UNA-UNSO slate in the 1998 Verkhovna Rada elections.

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