ANALYSIS: Yushchenko focuses attention on southern Ukraine and Crimea (05/01/05)

ANALYSIS

Yushchenko focuses attention on southern Ukraine and Crimea

by Taras Kuzio
Eurasia Daily Monitor

Anatoliy Matvienko's confirmation as prime minister of Crimea on April 20 follows an April 4 Odesa court decision to overturn the 2002 mayoral elections and confirm Eduard Hurvits as mayor (Ukrainska Pravda, April 4, 20). Both cases represent a strategic breakthrough by President Viktor Yushchenko's team, as the predominantly Russophone southern Ukraine and Crimean regions had voted for his opponent, Viktor Yanukovych, in the 2004 presidential elections.

Mr. Hurvits, a member of Mr. Yushchenko's Our Ukraine bloc, won the 2002 Odesa mayoral election, but the courts awarded the job to his opponent, Ruslan Bodelan, who backed then-president Leonid Kuchma. Mr. Bodelan is the Odesa head of the Party of the Regions, thus, his replacement represents a second blow to Mr. Yanukovych, the head of the Party of the Regions. The head of the party's Donetsk Oblast branch, Borys Kolesnykov, was arrested on April 6.

Crimean Prime Minister Serhii Kunitsyn initially refused to resign, but was eventually enticed with the ceremonial position of presidential adviser. National Democratic Party (NDP) leader Valerii Pustovoitenko, who had backed Mr. Yanukovych, complained that NDP member Mr. Kunitsyn's resignation was a case of "political repression."

In reality, Mr. Kunitsyn was made an offer he could not refuse. As the Kyiv Weekly (April 15-22) wrote, Mr. Kunitsyn had complained, "Every week 100 inspectors arrive from Kyiv. They said to me, either you leave or we'll lock you up ..." Files detailing Mr. Kunitsyn's corrupt background - records that are likely available for most members of Crimea's ruling elites - were used to force his hand.

Mr. Kunitsyn's replacement, Mr. Matvienko, is a surprising choice, as he heads the pro-democratic Sobor Party, which merged with the Republican Party in 2002. Sobor was a member of Prime Minister Tymoshenko's bloc in the 2002 elections.

Western scholars and policymakers usually lump southern and eastern Ukraine into one monolithic Russophone geographic unit, yet the reality is more complex. The Yushchenko team understands the different regional dynamics at work in Ukraine and is strategically targeting southern Ukraine ahead of the March 2006 parliamentary elections.

Mr. Yushchenko's strategic move into southern Ukraine comes after his successful election campaign in central Ukraine, the region that often decides the outcome of Ukrainian elections. Controlling southern Ukraine could increase Mr. Yushchenko's base from the 52 percent he obtained in the 2004 elections to two-thirds in the next Parliament.

Southern Ukraine is less industrialized than eastern Ukraine and, therefore, less Russified, with the exception of Crimea. A Ukrainian Barometer poll gave Mr. Yanukovych 30.8 percent support in southern Ukraine and Crimea, only slightly more than Mr. Yushchenko's 27.4 percent (Ukrainska Pravda, March 26).

In the largely agricultural Kherson Oblast, Messrs. Yushchenko and Yanukovych were neck-and-neck in all three rounds of last year's elections. In the Odesa and Mykolaiv Oblasts, which are more industrial, Mr. Yushchenko obtained approximately one-third to Mr. Yanukovych's two-thirds of the votes in all three rounds.

In the Crimean Autonomous Republic, Mr. Yushchenko's 12-16 percent of the vote was far lower than Mr. Yanukovych's 69-82 percent. Nevertheless, these were far better than Mr. Yushchenko's vote in Mr. Yanukovych's home base of Donetsk, where he obtained 5 percent or less in all three rounds (cvk.gov.ua).

This discrepancy between Donetsk and Crimea was reflected also in the March 2002 parliamentary elections, which explains why the Yushchenko camp is targeting southern Ukraine and the Crimea ahead of next year's parliamentary race.

As in Odesa, the political situation in the Crimea is now changing in President Yushchenko's favor. Mr. Yushchenko's election led to the disintegration of the pro-Kuchma Stability faction in the Crimean Parliament, which had numbered 85 out of 100 deputies. As Stability faction leader Borys Deich explained, "Crimea cannot live as a separate part of the state. Everything that is happening in Ukraine spreads to Crimea" (Zerkalo Nedeli, March 19-25).

As in the Ukrainian Parliament, many former pro-Kuchma centrists in the regions are also reluctant to oppose Mr. Yushchenko. Mr. Deich confided, "We are not in opposition to the new authorities" and we "declare our support for the president's course." The former pro-Kuchma People's Union Stability (38), coupled with the newly created pro-Yushchenko Power in Unity (15), gives Mr. Yushchenko a majority of 53 out of 100 Crimean deputies. Mr. Matvienko became prime minister with 61 votes. The Power in Unity faction is headed by Anatolii Burdiuhov, chief of a department at the National Bank of Crimea (Kyiv Weekly, March 25-April 1).

Ukrainian observers attribute Mr. Matvienko's rise to the most-powerful position in Crimea to two strategies.

First, it gives Ms. Tymoshenko's bloc (which includes her own Fatherland Party as well as Sobor) a strong position from which to compete against Mr. Yanukovych's party in 2006.

Of the two pro-Kuchma forces in the 2002 elections, only the Party of the Regions remains a potentially significant force in southern Ukraine and Crimea. The Communists (CPU) and the Social Democrats (SDPU) have both disintegrated as political forces throughout Ukraine, after coming in first and second in Crimea in 2002.

The CPU is down from 20 percent in 2002 to only 5 percent today while the SDPU's support has collapsed even more from 6 percent to only 1.2 percent, according to a new Razumkov Center poll (Ukrainska Pravda, April 20). The SDPU is the only party that looses potential voters when the name of its leader, Viktor Medvedchuk, is mentioned.

Second, Mr. Matvienko's appointment will encourage the Tymoshenko bloc to cooperate with Yushchenko's new People's Union Our Ukraine Party in the 2006 elections. Yurii Kostenko's Ukrainian National Party, which has refused to join the People's Union, had hoped to go into the elections with Sobor.

Taras Kuzio is visiting professor at the Elliot School of International Affairs, George Washington University. The articles above, which originally appeared in The Jamestown Foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor, are reprinted here with permission from the foundation (www.jamestown.org).

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