ANALYSIS: Ukraine's centrist camp in disarray ahead of 2006 parliamentary elections (11/13/05)

ANALYSIS

Ukraine's centrist camp in disarray ahead of 2006 parliamentary elections

by Taras Kuzio
Eurasia Daily Monitor

Although the main story in Ukrainian politics this fall has been the rift in the Orange Revolutionary camp, the centrists that once gathered around former President Leonid Kuchma are far more divided. Most of them will have a hard time winning seats in the 2006 Parliament.

Two of Ukraine's three centrist parties, representing the largest of the three oligarchic parties, have decided not to create election blocs and instead contest the 2006 elections alone (Ukrayinska Pravda, October 31, November 1). The Social Democratic Party - United (SDPU) and the Party of the Regions of Ukraine (PRU) will both run independent campaigns in 2006.

The SDPU ran independently in both the 1998 and 2002 elections, obtaining 4 percent and 6 percent, respectively. With current ratings of only 1 percent, it is unlikely to win a seat in 2006.

Party of the Regions' first election was in 2002, when it ran as a member of the pro-Kuchma For a United Ukraine bloc. In June it floated the idea of creating a bloc named after its leader, Viktor Yanukovych, which became saddled with the unfortunate slang abbreviation "Blya" (Blok Yanukovycha).

Two new parties could have joined "Blya": New Democracy, led by former Kharkiv Olbast Administration Chairman Yevhen Kushnariov, and Derzhava, led by former prosecutor Hennadii Vasyliev. A third possible member of "Blya" would have been the Progressive Socialists.

The third centrist party, Labor Ukraine (LU), is no longer a political force. Its dismal 1 percent rating is now divided between two quarrelling wings of LU led by Valeriy Konovaliuk and Volodymyr Sivkovych (Ukrayinska Pravda, October 8, 11). Labor Ukraine split over how to relate to the Orange Revolution. Mr. Konovaliuk sought to modernize TU by permitting some cooperation with the administration of President Viktor Yushchenko, while Mr. Sivkovych lobbied for the LU to join the hard-line anti-Yushchenko opposition.

Why have the centrists turned on each other?

All along, the centrists were united only by their allegiance to Mr. Kuchma, not by any common ideological bonds. This tenuous connection mirrors the lack of real unity in the Orange Revolutionary camp, which united nationalists, anarchists, liberals, businessmen and Socialists against Messrs. Kuchma and Yanukovych. After Mr. Yushchenko won, there was no common enemy to bind the coalition together.

According to SDPU leader Viktor Medvedchuk, one of the main differences between his party and the Party of the Regions is that the PRU faction signed the parliamentary agreement with President Yushchenko, a step the SDPU refused to take (Den, October 7).

Mr. Medvedchuk also complained that, because the SDPU had backed Mr. Yanukovych's candidacy in the 2004 elections, voters continue to confuse the SDPU and PRU as "one team."

Mr. Medvedchuk argued unconvincingly that the SDPU "upholds a contemporary social-democratic ideology," while PRU uses the slogan, "Strong regions - strong state." In reality, both parties are ideologically amorphous and the Socialist International even rejected the SDPU's membership on the grounds that it was not a real social-democratic party.

Ironically, the Party of the Regions is no longer a pro-Kuchma party. Mr. Yanukovych is now hostile to Mr. Kuchma, believing he betrayed and embarrassed him in the second round of the 2004 elections. Mr. Yanukovych lobbied throughout the first week of the Orange Revolution for Mr. Kuchma to launch a violent crackdown to confirm the official result of Mr. Yanukovych being elected as president. But President Kuchma refused, instead calling for fresh elections without Messrs. Yushchenko or Yanukovych, where he could have stood as a candidate. PRU's initial distrust of Messrs. Kuchma and Medvedchuk, it believes, was proven correct.

During his decade in office, President Kuchma granted the ruling elites in Donetsk, the PRU's base, de facto autonomy. They were only reluctantly brought into Kyiv politics by Mr. Kuchma in 2002 when Mr. Yanukovych was named prime minister and, two years later, heir apparent. They invested sizeable financial resources in the 2004 elections. The PRU and the SDPU, therefore, are also divided over the Kuchma era, with Mr. Medvedchuk giving it a positive spin, while Mr. Yanukovych is now critical.

Ukrainian polls continue to point to only six parties and blocs being elected to the 2006 Parliament. These six will compete in three groups for voters (Ukrayinska Pravda, October 31).

The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc will compete with Yushchenko's Our Ukraine People's Union for the mantle of the Orange Revolution. PRU will compete with the Communists for uneducated voters and pensioners in eastern Ukraine. The Socialist Party and Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn's bloc will compete for the rural vote in central and southern Ukraine.

The Orange Revolutionary camp is likely to re-unite after the 2006 elections to create a pro-Yushchenko majority that may include the Lytvyn bloc and the Socialists (Ukrayinska Pravda, October 8, 10, 25, 27, November 1). Centrists, on the other hand, will be represented only by the Party of the Regions, as other formerly influential pro-Kuchma parties will fail to enter Parliament.

Dr. 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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