Presidential candidates refocus on the campaign (12/19/04)

Presidential candidates refocus on the campaign

by Stephen Bandera
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KYIV - With less than 10 days left before the repeat presidential election on December 26, candidates Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych are focusing their efforts on southern and eastern Ukraine.

Both campaigns have modified their approaches for "round three" of the elections.

The last poll results made public prior to the two-week publication ban showed Mr. Yushchenko enjoying an eight-point lead - 47 percent to Mr. Yanukovych's 39 percent. Six percent of respondents chose the "against both candidates option," 3 percent were undecided and 5 percent said they do not plan to vote according to the poll conducted by the Razumkov Center on December 6-9 among 2,023 respondents.

The participants of the National Exit Poll consortium conducted more than 28,000 "secret ballot" interviews on November 21 and found that Mr. Yushchenko was supported by 53 percent, while Mr. Yanukovych had 44 percent suport among respondents.

These numbers do not bode well for Mr. Yanukovych's bid to be president.

The Yanukovych campaign introduced significant changes in personnel and strategy, and modified its message after the events of the Orange Revolution.

In terms of his campaign team, Mr. Yanukovych did not have much of a choice. Two high-profile campaign managers, former National Bank of Ukraine Chairman Serhii Tyhypko and National Deputy Stepan Harvysh, abandoned the Yanukovych ship in early December.

On December 10, Hanna Herman announced that she will no longer serve as Mr. Yanukovych's press secretary, but will remain on the campaign as an independent TV journalist.

Most significantly, it seems that Mr. Yanukovych has also lost the support of his most important patron - President Leonid Kuchma.

A December 14 report in the Financial Times quoted presidential administration spokesman Vasyl Baziv as saying: "I think Ukraine already has a president. He is Viktor Yushchenko. I think 50 percent of civil servants already say this aloud, and 80 or 90 percent already believe it."

The loss of President Kuchma's support means the loss of the coveted "administrative resource" - the levers of executive branch powers, business and media influence - previously wielded by the president.

However, fresh blood was added to the Yanukovych team after National Deputy Taras Chornovil took Mr. Tyhypko's spot as campaign manager. Mr. Chornovil is the son of the late Rukh leader Vyacheslav Chornovil, who was killed five years ago in a high-speed collision. Ironically, the younger Mr. Chornovil was elected to the Verkhovna Rada on the Yushchenko party ticket in 2002.

Team Yanukovych has also modified its message.

Mr. Yanukovych continues to play "the Russia card": promises of good relations with Russia, Russian as a second state language and dual citizenship with the Russian Federation. But he is no longer making those promises as prime minister and a pro-Kuchma politician.

Mr. Yanukovych has taken a leave of absence from government, avoiding the necessity of dealing with a November 27 no-confidence vote passed in Parliament.

Distanced from Kuchma

Mr. Yanukovych has tried to distance himself from President Kuchma as far as possible and position himself as an alternative to the Kuchma regime.

"I consider the battle against me as a fight being waged by the old, bankrupt regime. Their fight is against the successful policies I introduced in the last while," Mr. Yanukovych said during a December 13 press conference in Kyiv

Concerning his relations with President Kuchma, Mr. Yanukovych said, "Our points of view absolutely diverged, and I became deeply disappointed in that man."

"I hoped that during the time of crisis (Kuchma) would protect the interests of the state and the Ukrainian people. He defended his own interests and the interests of his family," Mr. Yanukovych told journalists.

Mr. Yanukovych is now trying to portray himself as the victim of a conspiracy contrived in Kyiv, and says he is continuing the race to protect the rights of the 15 million voters who he claims support him.

Mr. Yanukovych has also taken up the banner of "federalization," advocating more rights for Ukraine's diverse regions by transforming the state into a federation instead of the current unitary form. "The ideal of federalization is the way to developing a highly democratic society. But that path must be taken in a thoughtful way, without emotion," Mr. Yanukovych said on December 13.

On November 28, a conference of elected officials and Mr. Yanukovych supporters from the country's eastern regions put forth the idea of autonomy as a response to the events in Kyiv. Mr. Yanukovych supporters were forced to backtrack on the idea of creating the "Southeastern Ukrainian Autonomous Republic" after the specter of criminal charges against them was raised. Instead, they settled on the safer "federalization" formula.

Mr. Yanukovych's native Donetsk Oblast, which was scheduled to hold a referendum on the issue on January 9, on December 10 postponed the plebiscite for at least 90 days.

The Yanukovych campaign continued to accuse Mr. Yushchenko of being an American lackey - a mainstay of six-months of anti-Yushchenko campaigning that was supplemented by Cold War rhetoric that accused Mr. Yushchenko supporters of being fascists.

Most recently, the Yanukovych campaign has alleged that the Yushchenko campaign has received direct funding from the United States.

On December 13, national deputies from Mr. Yanukovych's Party of the Regions said they will initiate an ad hoc commission in the country's Parliament next week to investigate reports from the United States naming a number of financial sources for the opposition presidential candidate's election campaign.

In his piece "U.S. money helped opposition in Ukraine," published on December 10, Matt Kelley, an Associated Press writer, reported that "the Bush administration has spent more than $65 million in the past two years to aid political organizations in Ukraine ... U.S. officials say the activities do not amount to interference in Ukraine's election, as Russian President Vladimir Putin alleges, but are part of the $1 billion the State Department spends each year trying to build democracy worldwide."

Part of the Yanukovych team strategy appears to be the duplication of the Yushchenko team's legal maneuvers after the November 21 elections.

In an interview with Interfax, Mr. Chornovil, Mr. Yanukovych's newly minted campaign manager, said that the campaign's focus will be to "make falsification impossible." He added: "That is most important for us. Not only falsifications by our opponent, but those falsifications that may be committed under the guise of helping our candidate."

Mr. Yanukovych's campaign is planning to hold a parallel vote count, submit a list of violations and prepare legal action the day after the elections, Mr. Chornovil said in a December 10 interview.

"There will be a lot of technical work and little politics," he said. "We'll ignore Ukrainian sociology, Ukrainian exit polls."

Members of the Yanukovych campaign team have also hinted that they might challenge the constitutionality of the amendments to the election law approved by Parliament on December 8.

On December 14 Vladislav Lukianov, called the "de facto chief of Mr. Yanukovych's campaign" by the Donetsk-based opposition ostro.org website, told journalists that his team is working on two possible scenarios for the election: either victory or a repeat of the repeat run-off.

Speaking at a press conference in Donetsk, Mr. Lukianov said he considers the changes to the presidential election law as "specially made ... so that the next round of elections (will) be declared invalid."

Meanwhile, Mr. Yanukovych met with voters in Donetsk, Luhansk, Crimea, Mykolaiv and Kherson between December 11 and 16. His headquarters said the candidate will stay away from western regions, according to an Interfax Ukraine report.

Mr. Yanukovych announced that he will participate in televised debates scheduled for December 20, and has repeatedly denied suggestions that he might pull out of the race at the last minute. A Yanukovych withdrawal was widely discussed as one of the possible ways he could undermine Mr. Yushchenko's quest for the presidency.

"I will never step away from your and my choice. I am going to the end," Mr. Yanukovych told a rally of 50,000 supporters in Donetsk on December 11.

Team Yanukovych has also introduced new approaches to fund-raising for round three. "Everyone who wants to support our campaign on their own will, I ask you to send money - at least one hryvnia or 50 kopiyky. Accounts are being opened at the local headquarters," Mr. Yanukovych said during a live radio interview in Kherson on December 16.

Team Yushchenko refocuses

After the compromise between Mr. Yushchenko and outgoing President Kuchma was reached in Parliament on December 8, the Yushchenko team refocused its attention on running an election campaign.

On December 9, the Yushchenko team began revealing some of its plans for the last weeks of the campaign. Oleksander Zinchenko, co-chair of the campaign, told journalists that special efforts will focus on the Kharkiv, Odesa, Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts, and that personnel changes were effected in the oblasts where shortcomings occurred.

At a press conference on December 9 Yushchenko campaign co-chair Yulia Tymoshenko said, "We will pay particular attention to those regions where falsifications were the worst, in particular Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv and Mykolayiv."

Mr. Zinchenko said that, due to winter weather conditions, the campaign will not rely as much on rallies and mass meetings.

He noted the improved media environment and said that the Yushchenko team will take full advantage of the equal access that was denied to its candidate before the first two rounds of the election.

"We want to focus on economic issues in discussions with our opponent," Mr. Zinchenko said, "our views differ radically on political and economic processes."

During a campaign strategy meeting held earlier that day, Mr. Zinchenko said that "40 percent of our time was devoted to issues concerning the legal defense of the election results."

He added that on election day, the Yushchenko team will conduct a parallel vote count.

Concerning new approaches for the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, Mr. Zinchenko said that activists from the tent city in Kyiv will be sent.

On December 10, seven Pora activists tried to pitch two tents in Donetsk, on the square before the statue to the industrial city's British founder John Hughes. According to one of the Pora activists, a crowd of about 100 young men gathered around them within 20 minutes of their arrival. The tents were torn down and the activists chased away. A local journalist sustained minor injuries.

The Donetsk City Council then charged the Pora activists, but the court case was dismissed on December 13 because the "tents were no longer standing," according to a City Council spokesman.

On December 15, Mr. Yushchenko walked through the tent city in Kyiv and spoke with democracy activists. He did not ask protesters to vacate the capital's main street, the Khreschatyk, as was reported by some of Pora's leaders.

More than 20 additional tents were pitched on the sidewalk, and some Pora leaders said that the activists will leave the Khreschatyk at the request of Kyiv Mayor Oleksander Omelchenko and take up residence on the pedestrian walkway.

However some of the people living in the tents have no intention of freeing the street.

"I think we will be here for two or three weeks after the elections, so that the old regime - Kuchma, Medvedchuk and Yanukovych - see that we will not give up without a fight. We are going for victory. We will leave here only after Mr. Yushchenko becomes our president," said Yura, 18, a student from Cherkasy who left his home and studies on November 21 to come to Kyiv.

The campaign trail

On December 15, Mr. Yushchenko announced that he will visit Kharkiv in two days' time, followed by stops in either Dnipropetrovsk or Zaporizhia. He added that after winning the presidency, his first visit outside of the capital will be to the eastern oblasts.

"I will speak about Ukraine's unity. I am convinced the only thing that has divided us is an information blockade," Mr. Yushchenko said on December 14.

That day, team Yushchenko rolled out four new campaign ads titled "Peace to you," "Life goes on after elections," "Together we will build a new Ukraine" and "Together we can accomplish anything." The ads began to appear on four national televisions channels on December 14.

In an effort to reach out to new voters in the east and south, Mr. Yushchenko speaks in both Russian and Ukrainian in the ads.

In related news, a motorcade of 50 cars and 150 participants rolled out of Kyiv on December 14. Called the "Friendship Train," the 10-day tour of Ukraine's southern and eastern regions by artists, photographers, filmmakers, journalists and graffiti artists, plans to visit 14 oblasts.

According to organizers, who held a press conference at the Yushchenko campaign headquarters, the purpose of the 3,500-kilometer tour is to inform Ukrainians about the events of the Orange Revolution in Kyiv.

On December 15, the motorcade was stopped for three hours on the way to Odesa by more than 100 young men who were "bums and thugs," according to journalist and participant Vakhtang Kipiani. "They told us to leave with our 'American Yushchenko' and go back to 'American Kyiv,' " Mr. Kipiani said.

The tires of three cars were slashed.

The "Friendship Train" did spend the day in Odesa before moving on to Mykolayiv.

"The Yushchenko and Yanukovych campaigns have switched roles," according to independent political strategist Volodymyr Tsybulko. "In terms of rhetoric, Mr. Yanukovych previously spoke from a position of power. Now Mr. Yushchenko has assumed that roll," he explained.

Mr. Tsybulko also said that the Yushchenko campaign has experienced "Yanukovychization" because it is becoming more bureaucratic, and the decision-making process takes longer.

"Mr. Yushchenko's main task is not so much to conquer new territories as it is to ensure a high voter turnout among his supporters," Mr. Tsybulko said. He noted that Mr. Yushchenko's supporters are growing too confident in their sense of victory, and that may lead to voters staying at home on election day.

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