Bloc of 20 parties endorses Kuchma (09/05/99)

Bloc of 20 parties endorses Kuchma

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma's election campaign gathered steam on August 31 when the National Democratic Party organized an assembly of 20 political parties that vowed to support the incumbent in the presidential elections.

Although most of the parties had jumped aboard the bandwagon much earlier, the shindig thrown for the president, a drawn-out three-hour affair filled with speeches and promises, was a solid expression of the rising political tide in the center-left and center-right of the political spectrum for Mr. Kuchma. The parties supporting the president comprise more than a fourth of the 76 registered in Ukraine.

With eight weeks left in the campaign, President Kuchma leads the candidate pack with popular support of about 20 percent. The president's campaign team has been searching to build a widely based coalition for some time in order to achieve a quick victory for Mr. Kuchma in the first round of voting. They fear that in a second round the president would become susceptible to an organized effort from the left, currently splintered among four candidates, which could lead to the president's downfall.

Among the political organizations that signed on to the affair, called "Our Choice is Leonid Kuchma," were political opposites such as the Ukrainian National Conservative Party and the Republican Christian Party from the right and the Labor Party and the Party for the Regional Rebirth of Ukraine from the left.

Many of the organizations that expressed their support for the president by agreeing to be represented at the event are smallish political organizations with little popular support, such as the Party for a Beautiful Ukraine, which as far as most political analysts can surmise has an organization but no real membership list.

There are others, however, that carry much political influence and financial resources. Among them is the National Democratic Party led by Prime Minister Valerii Pustovoitenko and the Social Democratic Party (United) headed by Second Vice-Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Viktor Medvedchuk, whose membership includes former President Leonid Kravchuk and powerful businessman Hryhorii Surkis.

The gathering, held at the International Cultural and Arts Center, better known as the October Palace, resembled a convention, sans the balloons and much of the hoopla.

No united platform was offered, but several resolutions were passed, all unanimously. One called on the need to "ensure the predominance in society of the champions of reform over those who dream of an administrative command economy" - an obvious reference to the Communist Party.

The assembly agreed that its main goal, one expressed by their candidate, should be to lay the groundwork for Ukraine's vigorous advancement toward free market reforms and further democratization of the state, and to exclude any possibility for Ukraine to move back to its Communist past.

After Prime Minister Pustovoitenko kicked off the event, many of the party leaders took to the rostrum to offer words of encouragement, including Mr. Medvedchuk of the Social Democratic Party (United), Liberal Party leader Volodymyr Scherban and Democratic Party leader Hanna Antonieva.

Ms. Antonieva's party had thrown its support to Mr. Kuchma only days prior to the assembly, a move that was made after its first presidential choice, Yevhen Marchuk, joined three candidates from the left - Oleksander Tkachenko of the Peasants Party, Oleksander Moroz of the Socialist Party and independent Volodymyr Oliinyk - in a loose coalition.

The unexpected announcement of the new coalition, made on Independence Day from Tarasova Hora in Kaniv, has changed the political make-up in the presidential horse race inasmuch as the "Kaniv Four," as some in the press are calling them, may just have the strength to offer President Kuchma a serious challenge.

The Kuchma organization is using the Democratic Party's defection to its ranks as evidence that the coalition is fragile and will collapse.

President Kuchma, the center of all the fuss and the attention at the International Cultural and Arts Center, said he was humbled by such an expression of support and that the show of unity would help to raise cooperation among political parties to a higher level. He called the centrist political unity that the event symbolizes decisive for Ukraine.

"The assertion of political centrism and the formation of the middle class will be decisive in our breakthrough to a better life and ending the crisis in Ukraine," President Kuchma told the audience during a lengthy discourse on his plans and goals for the next four years.

Mr. Kuchma explained that he hoped the unity among the parties shown toward his candidacy would carry on after the October 31 elections and lead to the formalization of a political coalition and a parliamentary majority in the Verkhovna Rada.

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