Kuchma and Symonenko court former candidates to gain support (11/14/99)

Kuchma and Symonenko court former candidates to gain support

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukraine's voters go to the polls on November 14 to try, once again, to elect a president. Their choice is between two candidates who qualified for the runoff: the incumbent, Leonid Kuchma, and the Communist Party challenger, Petro Symonenko.

In the days after the first round of voting in the presidential elections - Ukraine's third since independence was proclaimed and affirmed in 1991 - both hopefuls courted the losing contenders in an effort to consolidate support for their own candidacies.

Slightly more than a week before the elections, President Kuchma, the leader in the October 31 balloting, and the No. 2 man, Mr. Symonenko, were making deals and offering positions in government to their 11 defeated opponents to find the edge and the votes that will ensure a victory in the November 14 run-off.

On November 5, a day after Ukraine's Central Election Commission reported the official results of the first-round voting, Mr. Symonenko made the first major inroads when six former nominees for the post of president announced they would back the Communist leader.

In a signed statement, the six - Oleksander Tkachenko of the Peasants Party, who withdrew his nomination just before the first- round vote in favor of Mr. Symonenko; Oleksander Moroz of the Socialist Party, who finished third; Volodymyr Oliinyk, an independent candidate and member of the Kaniv Four, who had supported Yevhen Marchuk; Yurii Karmazin of the Defenders of the Homeland Party; Oleksander Bazyliuk of the Russophile Slavic Party; and Mykola Haber of the Patriotic Party - agreed to direct their supporters to vote for Mr. Symonenko and work for his election.

In return, they received assurances that they will be offered top administrative posts in a Symonenko administration.

Mr. Symonenko also agreed in writing that within 10 days of his inauguration he would submit Constitutional amendments to Ukraine's Parliament curtailing presidential authority to appoint and dismiss key Cabinet ministers, the head of the tax administration, the procurator general and the head of the Security Service of Ukraine, and providing that such presidential authority will be exercised only with the approval of the Parliament.

In addition, the presidential candidate pledged to submit to the Parliament by January 1 a bill that would allow local administrative positions to be filled by local authorities.

The added support that Mr. Symonenko will receive from the endorsement by the six candidates is questionable. Of the six, only Mr. Moroz showed the ability to pull substantial votes in the first round, receiving just more than 11 percent.

While a good portion of Mr. Moroz's electorate may go over to the Communist candidate, Messrs. Karmazin, Bazyliuk and Haber do not have an electorate to speak of. Combined they gained barely half a percentage point of electoral support.

The depth of Mr. Moroz's decision to his candidate is being questioned by political analysts. Mr. Moroz did not show up at the November 5 press conference of the new Symonenko alliance and again at the November 7 October Revolution commemoration organized by the Communist Party of Ukraine, which spotlighted Mr. Symonenko. He opted instead to travel to Paris to attend the Socialist Internationale.

In addition, Mr. Moroz's campaign organization has fallen apart over the matter of whom to endorse. On November 10 his Dnipropetrovsk Oblast campaign manager said on Ukrainian Television that the oblast organization would not support Mr. Symonenko.

In addition, in declaring for Mr. Symonenko, Mr. Moroz's party only went so far as to state that it is "inclined" to support him, and expressed its belief that the Communist leader must broaden his appeal to form an "anti-Kuchma front to be led by well-known figures able to consolidate the votes of the leftist, centrist and 'protesting' electorate."

In comments he made to journalists the day the Symonenko alliance was announced, Mr. Moroz said that he personally backs the Communist candidate 100 percent.

"I am ready to support Mr. Symonenko, not only as the Communist leader, but also as a non-aligned candidate capable of replacing the current corrupt regime," said Mr. Moroz, according to Interfax-Ukraine.

The other major candidate from the political left, Progressive Socialist Natalia Vitrenko, who finished fourth just behind Mr. Moroz on October 31, offered qualified support for Mr. Symonenko after initially hedging. At first she demanded a promise in writing from Mr. Symonenko that she would get the post of prime minister in exchange for her endorsement. After the offer was rejected, the outspoken politician issued a statement on November 9 that the Communist candidate was the Progressive Socialist Party's man anyway.

"The decision that was unanimously agreed to by a meeting of our extended presidium is that today we must support Mr. Symonenko in order to take advantage of the chance to change the course of economic reforms and political reforms," Ms. Vitrenko told STB Television.

Over on the other side of the political fence, President Kuchma also began gathering less-needed but nonetheless eagerly sought endorsements soon after the official results of the first round were in. He already has the support of 24 centrist parities, which joined to form the Our Choice - Leonid Kuchma political bloc in late August.

On November 7, during an anti-Communist mass rally held in St. Sofia Square to commemorate the victims of Communist terror, Mr. Kuchma gathered another endorsement when Rukh Chairman Hennadii Uvodenko announced that he and his organization would support the incumbent as the only hope for democracy against the threat of a red revanche. He was joined on the dais by Green Party candidate Vitalii Kononov, who also gave the nod to Mr. Kuchma.

A few days later, Oleksander Rzhavskyi, ex-candidate of the Single Family Party, threw in his support as well.

Mr. Kuchma's biggest victory in the endorsement sweepstakes was the one given by Mr. Marchuk on November 10. To get the support of the one-time prime minister and former chief of the Security Service of Ukraine, the president had to offer him the powerful post of secretary of the National Security and Defense Council. (See story on page 1.)

The potential 2.1 million votes (8.14 percent of the first round total) that Mr. Marchuk's endorsement offers could be what the president needs to get over the top in the run-off.

Of the 13 first-round candidates, only Yurii Kostenko of the splinter Rukh organization and Vasyl Onopenko of the Ukrainian Socialist Party have yet to endorse either President Kuchma or Mr. Symonenko. The two, who had joined in an alliance in mid-October, received less than 2 percent of the October 31 vote.

Mr. Kostenko announced on November 5 that his Rukh would support President Kuchma if he agreed to heed eight demands put forth by his political organization, including applying for NATO membership, retracting discriminatory rulings regarding the Ukrainian language, stimulating the creation of a united All-Ukrainian Orthodox Church and giving veterans of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army official status as Ukrainian freedom fighters.

Four days later, having received no answer from the president or his campaign team, the splinter Rukh decided that it could not endorse either of the candidates.

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