EDITORIAL: Counting the votes (04/05/98)

EDITORIAL

Counting the votes

Independent Ukraine's second parliamentary elections are over. The good news was the voter turnout: over 64 percent nationwide, ranging from just over 50 percent in Sevastopol and 58 percent in Kyiv, to 84 percent in Ternopil Oblast. But voter turnout does not tell the whole story. As Ukrainian Media Club President Serhii Naboka told the Eastern Economist, "democracy may have won, but democratic forces lost."

The results certainly are not encouraging, considering that Communists - who had been expected to get 17 to 18 percent of the vote - won nearly 25 percent in the party poll, giving them 84 seats in the Parliament. They also won an additional 39 seats in the single-mandate district voting. Thus, the Communist Party has 123 seats in the new Verkhovna Rada - significantly more than the 80 it had in the outgoing Parliament. And, the Communists already are talking about changing things now that their presence has been reinforced - like diminishing the power of the president and altering the current policy of cooperating with foreign financial institutions such as the IMF.

Their fellow travelers, the Socialist/Agrarian coalition earned 8.5 percent in the party voting, winning 29 seats; in the single-mandate voting the Agrarians won eight seats and the Socialists three. Also included in this left category is the Progressive Socialist Party, which won 14 party seats as a result of its 4.04 percent showing in the party balloting. And, there are several minor parties/blocs, such as Soyuz and the Peasants Party, whose deputies can be expected to side with the leftist forces.

That means the Communists/Socialists/Agrarians/Progressive Socialists/et al have at least 181 votes in the 450-member Parliament - that's 40.2 percent.

On the other side are the democrats: Rukh, which had 9.4 percent of the party vote for 32 seats, plus 14 seats in single-mandate voting; the Greens, 5.4 percent for 19 seats; the National Democratic Party, 4.99 percent for 17 seats, plus 11 individual seats; the Hromada Party, 4.68 percent for 16 party seats, plus seven individual seats; and the Social Democratic Party - United, 4.02 percent for 14 party seats. Add to that the Reform and Order Party, the Christian Democratic Party and the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists with three seats each, and the Republican Party with two. Now you have a picture of the strength of democratic forces in Ukraine's next Verkhovna Rada: 141 seats, or just over 31.3 percent of the Parliament.

Do the results indicate a continuing stalemate in Parliament? The immediate answer seems to be: yes. But, there still is some hope in the good news that 114 independents were elected in single-mandate districts. Observers, including former President Leonid Kravchuk, say the independents, most of whom are said to be democrats and nationalists, businessmen and high-profile activists, are not likely to vote with the Communists or leftists. Thus, the three-way split that has defined Ukraine's Parliament will continue. What may change is the way the various forces interact.

President Kuchma underlined that he believes there are enough centrist and democratic national deputies in the Verkhovna Rada who will work with the president, and that he is ready to work with them. "This Parliament will be no worse than the old one," he added. He also assured Ukraine and the rest of the world that "despite the election results there will be no going back. Ukraine will pursue its reformist policy."

Whether that assessment is justified will become evident soon enough.