24 candidates registered for presidential election
by Vasyl Pawlowsky
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly
KYIV - The Central Election Commission (CEC) on August 3 registered the last candidate for the post of president of Ukraine, filling the presidential ballot with 24 different candidates, with different political backgrounds and with just as many different bases of support (see listing on page 3).
With this phase of the registration process completed, it was evident also that incumbent President Leonid Kuchma, who had previously stated on a number of occasions that he would not run for re-election even though he had been given the go-ahead by Ukraine's Constitutional Court to run for a third term, had stuck to his word.
Those who had taken the step that Mr. Kuchma declined paid the 500,000 hrv registration fee and submitted the corresponding paperwork. By September 20 the candidates must demonstrate that they have popular support by obtaining a half a million signatures from across Ukraine.
Since the first candidates were registered on July 6, a number of events have occurred that have marked the political landscape and impacted the candidates who have been registered. While the registration of most candidates was done in a low-key manner, there were some who took a more dramatic approach. A former leader of the radical right quasi-military group UNA-UNSO, Dmytro Korchynsky, who now leads a similar organization that goes by the name Bratstvo, rented an armored personnel carrier to deliver his candidacy papers to the Central Election Commission.
Our Ukraine in the past week expelled National Deputy Oleh Tiahnybok from its faction after he declared at a public meeting at the grave of Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) soldier Kylym Syvula in mid-July, "They [the UPA] prepared themselves and fought the Muscovites, the Germans, the Jews and other filth, which wanted to take our Ukrainian nation. We have to return Ukraine to Ukrainians."
There were also a series of events that were clearly of a more consequential political nature for the presidential elections. On July 18 the congress of the Reform and Order Party, led by National Deputy Viktor Pynzenyk, declared that it was renaming the party Our Ukraine. This was to the chagrin of some Yushchenko supporters who felt the name change was only an attempt to usurp the image of Our Ukraine before the parliamentary elections, which are less than 18 months away. In addition, some Reform and Order Party members commented that they feel the party had lost its focus on the immediate goal: the election of Mr. Yushchenko as president.
Meanwhile, Oleksander Moroz, whose Socialist Party is considered part of the opposition in the Verkhovna Rada along with the factions headed by Mr. Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko, has stayed away from supporting Our Ukraine. He was registered as a presidential candidate from the Socialist Party early in the registration period.
While he was not ready to join forces, as Mr. Yushchenko would like, Mr. Moroz was able to come to an agreement with his presidential rival on August 2, signing a statement with the Our Ukraine leader on coordinating efforts to ensure that the elections would be carried out freely and fairly.
Mr. Yushchenko commented that he hopes cooperation with Mr. Moroz will eventually deepen. "I am convinced that this first step on the agreement of cooperation of efforts of the democratic forces will not stop," he stated.
Over the weekend of July 24-25 a number of other political party congresses took place, including a general meeting of those who support Mr. Yanukovych for president. A pact signed by 25 different parties that attended the gathering not only aimed to support Mr. Yanukovych's run for the presidency, but also outlined further cooperation leading to the elections to the Verkhovna Rada in 2006, and the subsequent formation of a parliamentary majority.
Mr. Yanukovych's campaign manager, Serhii Tyhypko, who also heads the National Bank of Ukraine, claimed on August 3 that close to 5 million signatures had been gathered in support of the current prime minister's presidential candidacy in a month's time. However, as reported by Ukrainska Pravda, some are questioning the methods being used for the collection of these signatures, and pointing out that civil servants are being used to gather them. The use of civil servants is one example of what is referred to as the "administrative resources" wielded by those in positions of authority. Mr. Tyhypko has claimed at press conferences that he will run a fair and transparent campaign and will not utilize administrative resources.
While Mr. Yanukovych may have over 25 parties behind him, there are also candidates who have stated outright that they have thrown their hat into the race specifically to run against the prime minister. These include: Mykhailo Brodskyi, leader of Yabluko, and Kyiv Mayor Oleksander Omelchenko, who according to a report on Public Radio aired prior to his registration, has a great deal of support from the Association of Cities of Ukraine and many of the country's mayors.
While it is clear that the two favored candidates in the presidential race - Messrs. Yanukovych and Yushchenko - will be in the race until the end, the field should narrow as some of the other hopefuls fail to gather the 500,000 signatures required to be registered with the Central Election Commission by the third week of September.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, August 8, 2004, No. 32, Vol. LXXII
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