EDITORIAL: United path is the key (03/16/03)

EDITORIAL

United path is the key

It's not the first time it's happened because it's not the first demonstration of the "Arise, Ukraine" movement. However, it still remains strange to see the red flags and hammer and sickle of the Communist Party flapping above a sea of humanity next to the Ukrainian blue-and-yellow standard.

The contrast was particularly striking during the latest protest march and rally organized by Ukraine's opposition movement, which was held on March 9, the 189th anniversary of the birth of Ukraine's bard, Taras Shevchenko.

The Communist column, descending onto European Square from one side, and the national democratic forces of Our Ukraine, approaching from the other, merged into a confluent stream and then, walking side-by-side along the Khreschatyk proceeded to the Shevchenko monument. It could have been construed as a truly utopian moment.

However, imagery aside, there wasn't much to support that notion because the two sides coldly ignored one another and kept their columns apart as they marched.

The hard fact remains that the "Arise, Ukraine" coalition, a representative picture of the ideological spectrum of Ukraine, has little that keeps it united other than its determination to see the presidential tenure of Leonid Kuchma shortened as much as possible. And while they march together, the activists and the leaders of the four opposition political parties - Viktor Yushchenko and Our Ukraine, Petro Symonenko and the Communist Party, Oleksander Moroz and the Socialist Party, and Yulia Tymoshenko and her eponymous political bloc - have little in common politically, and, more importantly, have shown little desire to find such.

With about a year and a half before presidential elections, we should soon see the downfall of the "Arise, Ukraine" movement as the individual parties focus their efforts and their forces on the task ahead. In fact, the next scheduled demonstration, now set for May 22, the day Shevchenko's remains were rebuired in Kaniv after being moved from St. Petersburg, where the poet died, should see the last major opposition action, unless something happens that utterly provokes the docile Ukrainian masses.

The individual leaders of opposition forces have each asserted that the only way the pro-presidential political oligarchs they so disdain can be neutralized and defeated is by presenting a united front and a single candidate for the presidency. Yet, none of them has shown a willingness to cast his or her political hat aside in favor of another.

What makes the notion of a single presidential candidate from "Arise, Ukraine" almost absurd is that the two most popular political figures, Mr. Symonenko and Mr. Yushchenko, are, ideologically speaking, diametrically opposed. While Mr. Yushchenko projects the political image of a staid, German-type, Christian Democrat, Mr. Symonenko can only be called a Communist hard-liner, even given allowances for the more moderate meaning the term has taken on in the aftermath of the USSR's downfall.

There is no way that either of them will decline a run for the presidency in deference to the other. Never ever.

The closest cooperation among the four groups has occurred between the Socialist Party and the Tymoshenko forces. However, the right-oriented element of the Tymoshenko Bloc - those associated with the Sobor-Republican Party of Lev Lukianenko and Anatolii Matvienko - have an ideological bent that keeps them close to Our Ukraine.

Also, one cannot forget that Ms. Tymoshenko, who has an abundance of charisma and ambition, may really believe that she should be the appointed one. The fact that she is a woman is not a drawback in this country and could certainly be a positive element in a society that in many respects is inclined towards matriarchy.

What is important and even crucial is that a splintered opposition in the run-up to the presidential elections may open the way for a candidate from the business/political clans to edge to the forefront. For Ukraine to find its way back to the most direct road to democracy, it can ill afford to be sidetracked yet again by petty infighting and ambition within the opposition.

Like oil and water - and as happened during the March 9 demonstration - Our Ukraine and the Communists will never be able to mix. As the election season begins they will undoubtedly move apart and offer up individual candidates.

The key to the elections could well be the forces led, respectively, by Mr. Moroz and Ms. Tymoshenko. But that will be so only if the Socialists and the Tymoshenko Bloc realize that by going it alone they have little chance to defeat those political powers they believe are hindering Ukraine's development as an independent country. They would do well to seek a united path towards democracy and Europe: to cast aside the Communists and stick with Our Ukraine.

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