ANALYSIS: Conflict grows between Our Ukraine and Social Democratic Party United (01/04/04)

ANALYSIS

Conflict grows between Our Ukraine and Social Democratic Party United

by Taras Kuzio
RFE/RL Poland, Belarus and Ukraine Report

Anders Aslund, of Washington's Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think-tank, compares Viktor Medvedchuk's behind-the-scenes role in Ukrainian politics to that of oligarch Boris Berezovskii, who fled Russia in late 2000. Since Mr. Medvedchuk, chairman of the Social Democratic Party-United (SDPU), became head of the presidential administration in May 2002, dirty tactics of one sort or another have escalated against Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine. Two factors account for this.

First, Dr. Aslund believes that the SDPU is the only large oligarchic clan in Ukraine that has not established itself in industrial production. This means, he believes, that in the event of a clean-up of Ukraine's economy and energy sector, including making the budgetary process more transparent, Mr. Medvedchuk and the SDPU would lose out most. In contrast, the Party of Regions and the Dnipropetrovsk-based Labor Ukraine clans have established themselves in Ukraine's privatized industrial sector.

As the end of the Leonid Kuchma era approaches, the Party of Regions and Labor Ukraine are attempting to evolve from oligarchs, who gained from robber-baron capitalism in the 1990s, to businessmen. Viktor Pinchuk, who dominates Ukraine's pipe manufacturing, is an example of this gentrification. Mr. Pinchuk, therefore, is not concerned about a potential Mr. Yushchenko victory in the 2004 elections.

When the last cleanup of Ukraine's economy and government finances took place during the Mr. Yushchenko government of December 1999-April 2001, the SDPU was thought to have suffered most. Dr. Aslund calculated that approximately $2 billion was returned to the Ukrainian budget by the Mr. Yushchenko government.

Mr. Medvedchuk played a leading role in organizing a combined oligarch-communist vote of no confidence on April 26, 2001 that led to Prime Minister Yushchenko's dismissal. This was seen as revenge for Mr. Yushchenko successfully organizing the removal of Mr. Medvedchuk as first vice-chairman of the Verkhovna Rada in December 2000.

Second, the low-intensity conflict between Our Ukraine and the SDPU is a consequence of two political forces campaigning for dominance in the same region of western and central Ukraine. The SDPU is the only oligarchic clan unable to secure for itself a dominant place in its home base of Kyiv.

To Mr. Kuchma, therefore, the SDPU does not play the role in Ukrainian politics that a clan is supposed to - that is, to control an area on behalf of the executive. This role is best undertaken by Regions of Ukraine who blocked Our Ukraine from crossing the 4 percent threshold in the 2002 elections in the Donbas region and ensured the ultimate victory for the pro-Kuchma For a United Ukraine bloc.

In Kyiv itself the SDPU is disliked by the public and opposed by popular Kyiv Mayor Oleksander Omelchenko. During the 2002 elections one would be hard-pressed to find a single SDPU poster in Kyiv. Mayor Omelchenko cooperated with Mr. Yushchenko in removing Mr. Medvedchuk from the post of Rada first vice-chairman, and in return Mr. Medvedchuk is widely believed to be behind attempts to force Mr. Omelchenko to retire from office on grounds of his age. In 1999 Hryhoriy Surkis, Mr. Medvedchuk's close ally, lost disastrously to Mr. Omelchenko in the Kyiv mayoral race.

In July to August this conflict between Our Ukraine and SDPU became unpleasant in mayoral elections in Mukachiv. Mukachiv is an important town in Zakarpattia, which was the only western Ukrainian oblast controlled by the SDPU. Vasyl Petiovka, the Our Ukraine candidate, defeated SDPU candidate Ernest Nuser in a hotly contested election. Our Ukraine accused the SDPU of being behind the arson attack on the home of Pavlo Scherban, the head of the city court, which rejected a Lviv District Court ruling to nullify voting results in 15 of the city's 36 polling precincts.

In Lviv the conflict between Our Ukraine and the SDPU has surrounded persistent complaints that the local tax administration, headed by Mr. Medvedchuk's brother Serhiy, is deliberately targeting businesses which support Our Ukraine. The editors of Lvivska Hazeta complained that they had been targeted because their newspaper had exposed widespread corruption in the ranks of the Lviv tax administration.

On October 1 the Lviv City Council, headed by Our Ukraine member Mykhailo Sendak, passed a vote of no confidence in the city's tax administration. The presidential administration responded by removing the Lviv Oblast chairman and the heads of four raion administrations in the oblast who were accused of allowing Our Ukraine to organize civil unrest. A 15,000-strong demonstration in Lviv took place on September 26 in protest against the tax administration and the formation of the CIS Single Economic Space. The tactic used in Donetsk of portraying Our Ukraine as "Nashist" was devised in Lviv by the SDPU. "Nashism" is a play on the Ukrainian word "our" in Our Ukraine and meant to resemble "Nazism." A October 6 SDPU statement on events in Lviv used Soviet language to describe Our Ukraine as an "openly extremist and dirty political force" with an "extremist and ultranationalistic wing." This is ironic coming from the SDPU, which has incorporated former members of the extreme-right Ukrainian National Assembly (UNA), such as Andriy Shkil, into leading positions in the party in western Ukraine. Dmytro Korchynskyi, UNA's former leading ideologue in the 1990s, regularly assails Mr. Yushchenko on the 1+1 television channel controlled by the SDPU.

Mr. Medvedchuk has boxed himself into a corner by tying his fate so closely to President Kuchma, in the same way Boris Berezovskii did with Boris Yeltsin. Mr. Medvedchuk's tactics, and that of his SDPU, have led to two outcomes: first, he has made himself unelectable as president; second, the Socialist International has turned down the SDPU, which it had been assiduously courting for membership, preferring instead to grant membership to the Socialist Party and the Social Democratic Party.

Keeping his capital abroad may be a shrewd tactic for Mr. Medvedchuk as it is difficult to see how he could stay in Ukraine in the event of a Yushchenko victory.

Dr. Taras Kuzio is a resident fellow at the Center for Russian and East European Studies, University of Toronto.

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