Green Party jumps to No. 2 in latest pre-election survey (03/22/98)

Green Party jumps to No. 2 in latest pre-election survey

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - A week before elections, the Green Party of Ukraine has surprised observers by climbing into second place in opinion polls, overcoming a fading Rukh Party. Rukh has fallen off from its near double-digit standing among Ukrainian voters to 5.8 percent, while the Green Party has maintained an increasing and unprecedented level of voter approval that has risen to 6 percent. A March 3 survey of 1,800 voters shows that the Communist Party continues to hold the strongest way over the electorate and has increased its grip to 14 percent.

With almost 20 percent of Ukraine's electorate still not sure whether or not they will vote, and with more than 32 percent of those voting not decided yet for whom they will cast their ballot, according to political pollsters, exactly what will happen on March 29 is far from certain.

"We are not going to make any predictions as to the final results," said Ilia Kucheriv, director of the polling group Democratic Initiatives, which along with the Socis-Gallup polling firm, conducted the poll. "Much can change with more than 30 percent of the voters not decided. Ukraine's voters have a history of making their final decisions once they get into the booth."

The Democratic Initiatives poll, however, does estimate that four parties will probably break the 4 percent barrier needed to place their representatives in the Verkhovna Rada: the Communist Party, the Rukh Party, the Social-Democratic Party (United) and the Green Party.

The Socialist/Agrarian bloc is very near the threshold, while three other parties, Hromada, the Progressive Socialists and the National Democrats stand an outside chance of making it, according to the survey.

The ecology-minded Greens have a party list that more closely represents a Chamber of Commerce than an ecology-minded political organization. Five of its top 10 candidates are successful Ukrainian businessmen and one is the chairman of the country's seventh largest bank.

The financing they have brought to the party has allowed it to develop a strong and effective advertising campaign that has obviously struck home with voters.

But Yevhen Verbylo, the Green Party's mass media representative, said the party is far from wealthy. "There are no guards protecting our building and no Mercedes Benz automobiles standing before our offices. Our party head takes the bus to work," said Mr. Verbylo.

He agreed that the ads have been effective, but said they are not the reason the party has shown such popularity among the voters. "The ad presents the idea, but the ad is only the shove," explained Mr. Verbylo. "People think about how their family will live in the future, how their kids will live. The ads have simply made people more conscious. We say that only with a clean and strong environment can we have a clean and strong society."

The Green Party believes that its support is strong and that it will continue to grow as Ukraine becomes more like Europe, where the Green movement has been asserting itself for decades.

That, however, is not what Rukh press representative Dmytro Ponamarchuk, veteran of several political elections, believes. He told The Weekly that he believes the Green Party's popularity is a shooting star fired by strong financial backing that will fizzle once the money well dries up. "I call it the party of Greenbacks," he said. "Their support is due to advertising and the money that allows it. As quickly as the support picked up, it will drop."

Mr. Ponamarchuk explained his own party's drop in the polls as an aberration, a blip on a radar screen caused by background noise. "The situation here is that with 30 parties in the election campaign, the electorate is scattering among the various parties."

He said that at crunch time on March 29, when people have to cast their vote, they will see that the choice is not between 30 parties but that it is between the political right or the left. "Right now there is no center. It has fragmented itself into oblivion," said Mr. Ponamarchuk. "So the two traditional opponents remain: Rukh and the Communists."

He said that the polls also do not take into account the large undecided bloc of voters. He believes that many of them will choose the Rukh Party. "We could get 12 percent, or even 15-16 percent of the vote on election day," said Mr. Ponamarchuk.

Mr. Verbylo of the Green Party, on the other hand, said that his party only hopes that it keeps the support it now enjoys. He believes that 15 members of the Green Party will be seated in the new Verkhovna Rada and that a Green faction will be formed that will work well with Rukh. "I believe that eventually Rukh and the Greens will find a common language at some point, they will have a common goal.

For the Greens the opponents are the power structures entrenched in today's Ukrainian government. "It is the officials in power today. Just look at the factories, the pollution, the level of technology," said Mr. Verbylo.