Ukrainian National Assembly registered as political party (12/28/97)

Ukrainian National Assembly registered as political party

by Zenon Zawada
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KYIV - After two years of political stagnation, due to repeated refusals of recognition by Ukraine's Ministry of Justice, the Ukrainian National Assembly, the political arm of the ultra-nationalist, paramilitary Ukrainian National Assembly/Ukrainian National Self-Defense Organization (UNA-UNSO), achieved official recognition as a national political party in Ukraine.

As a result, the organization, which has significantly toned down its chauvinistic and ethnocentric rhetoric in recent years, held a national party convention on November 4 in Kyiv to approve candidates and their platform, during which delegates confirmed candidates on the party roll and leaders cast an ambitious tone for parliamentary elections, set for this coming March.

For a little over two years, the leadership of the paramilitary group's political branch the UNA, has fought with the ministry and its former head, Serhii Holovatyi, to become recognized as a political party, thereby including the UNA on voting ballots throughout the country for parliamentary elections. UNA leader Oleh Vitovych said among the key reasons for the ministry's refusal to acknowledge the UNA was political bias against his organization.

"In a normal, lawful country, [registration] would not have to rely on political will, sympathy or antipathy on the part of the country's leaders," Mr. Vitovych said. "Unfortunately, we live under the conditions of a not-totally just country."

Mr. Holovatyi once vowed that as long as power was in his hands, the UNA would not become registered as a political party in Ukraine. However, about a month after Mr. Holovatyi's removal the Justice Ministry on September 29 officially recognized the UMA as a political party.

Mr. Vitovych also attributed the success in registration to the UNA's legal representation, which assisted its cause.

Following its recognition, the UNA-UNSO underwent another significant political facelift, when the ideological leader of the organization since its birth in 1991, Dmytro Korchynskyi, resigned from party leadership on November 12. Mr. Korchynskyi, known by many Ukrainians for his bushy, Shevchenko-like mustache and provocative sound bites on television, cited his disinterest in politics as a major reason.

He said his years of work with the UNA-UNSO have resulted in the transformation of an "elitist organization into a right-wing petty bourgeois party."

"Politics turned out to be far worse than good old extremism," Mr. Korchynskyi said. "We will have to be more democratic and less authoritarian, with which I don't agree."

The resignation of Mr. Korchynskyi, a name and face that has been synonymous with the UNA-UNSO, and the new political status of the UNA, marks a new era in its brief but extremely controversial seven-year history, which includes public tramplings of Romanian, Russian and Polish flags and dispatches of paramilitary troops to Chechnya to fight against Russian forces. Their red-and-black flags and armbands bear a Maltese cross; their right-arm, clenched-fist salute is gestured to the shout of "Slava Natsiyi" (Glory to the Nation).

Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, chief rabbi of Ukraine, has said he sees the UNA as a potentially dangerous and extreme organization. Mr. Vitovych, however, maintained that parallels drawn between his organization and previous German and Italian fascist movements are merely based on emotions and images, and not concrete facts.

Mr. Vitovych also made it clear that there are 40 UNA members who are members of ethnic minorities in Ukraine, and Gen. Vilen Martyrosian, an Armenian, is among the party's leaders.

In unveiling the party's political platform at its convention, traces of an ultranationalist UNA were apparent. The party platform includes goals of Ukrainian economic, cultural and military "domination" in Central and Eastern Europe, claims to land in Moldova and the northern Caucasus, where ethnic Ukrainians have a significant presence, and "direct competition" and antagonism with Russia on all political issues.

But in an appeal to Ukraine's working classes, the party has diluted its chauvinistic positions by emphasizing its goals of raising military and working wages. Promises of exorbitant wages for soldiers ($600 per month) pensions, tax-free salaries for all physical laborers, an end to corruption and restoration of order are points stressed in the party platform. At the party conference, Mr. Korchynskyi said the quality of life in Ukraine "will be like it was during Brezhnev," only better under the UNA's leadership. However, Mr. Korchynskyi left the organization in early November, after the nomination of candidates, claiming that the organization "had become like an old car that had reached maximum speed ... better to leave it behind and get into an airplane."

Although Mr. Vitovych declined to say whether he feels support for the party is growing, a recent poll conducted by the Eurasia Regional Problems Research Center stated that 12.4 percent of Ukrainians would vote for the UNA in the upcoming parliamentary elections. The poll's results were published by the Interfax news service, but several publications, including Ukraina Moloda, cited the center's close ties with the UNA. Mr. Vitovych said that, if the figures in the poll were inflated, then a more realistic figure might be 8 or 9 percent. He expects that the UNA will win at least 4 percent of the vote in March. Almost 90 percent of the organization's members are under age 35.

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