POLITICAL BLOC PROFILE: The Party of the Regions (02/19/06)

POLITICAL BLOC PROFILE: The Party of the Regions

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

During the 2006 parliamentary election campaign, The Ukrainian Weekly will profile the leading political blocs. This week's installment features the Party of the Regions bloc.

KYIV - The Party of the Regions has learned a thing or two from the 2004 presidential elections.

Gone is blue and white. For the 2006 parliamentary campaign, its colors are the bright blue and yellow fields of the Ukrainian flag.

Rather than playing the politics of dividing and exploiting Ukraine's east-west divide, party leader Viktor Yanukovych has adopted the visionary rhetoric of uniting Ukraine.

"No region will receive special benefits and no region will become the single example for punishment," Mr. Yanukovych said during a February 14 speech outlining his party's economic development plan for Ukraine. "Businessmen in Kyiv and Lviv will have the same possibilities as businessmen who live in the south or the east. This is my solid, public promise."

After the embarrassing mishandling of the 2004 elections that brought Ukraine to the brink of an east-west split, the Party of the Regions has undergone a makeover that allowed it to emerge as the single most popular political bloc heading into the March 26 elections.

Party leaders

The Party of the Regions is trying to become respectable and broaden its appeal beyond the Donetsk Oblast, said Oles Donii, chair of the Kyiv-based Center for Political Values Research, which is supported by Ukrainian citizens and is seeking international financing.

The party's top five electoral candidates are evidence of that strategy.

Yevhen Kushnariov is the former Kharkiv Oblast Administration chair who merged his New Democracy Party into the Party of the Regions and, in turn, received the 11th slot on the Regions electoral list. The Party of the Regions doesn't form blocs with other parties, but requires that they merge.

Mr. Kushnariov's decision to join will help secure many Kharkiv Oblast votes for the party.

Additionally, Ukrainian-speaking Lviv native Taras Chornovil is ranked fourth on the party list and is among the party's most visible and recognized faces. It's unlikely that his presence will attract votes, however, as most western Ukrainians view him as a traitor to the legacy of his father, Vyacheslav Chornovil.

Mr. Yanukovych is once again leading the Party of the Regions, however, his access to the media is much more restricted in this campaign.

He has avoided any debates on television so far, a point increasingly being raised by Ukrainian media.

At the February 14 rally promoting the party's economic development strategy, Mr. Yanukovych read his speech, posed for photos and didn't take questions.

The Party of the Regions stunned many Ukrainians when announcing that it was giving Nina Karpachova the second slot on its electoral list.

As the Verkhovna Rada's ombudsman for human rights, Ms. Karpachova earned a respected reputation for speaking out against abuses and defending the rights of victims, something she has been doing for more than a decade.

The inclusion of Ms. Karpachova was another move by the Party of the Regions to improve its legitimacy and credibility in the eyes of the electorate after many leaders had allegedly engaged in election fraud, political experts said.

Novokramatorskyi Automobile Factory President Heorhii Skudar and Motor Sich Airplane Engine Factory Board Chair Viacheslav Bohuslayev are pro-Russian business tycoons who have the party's No. 3 and No. 5 slots, respectively.

Political strategy

The Party of the Regions hasn't made any particular gains in the electorate, Mr. Donii said. Instead, it has demonstrated that it has a vast and formidable electoral base that supports the party in order to maintain economic and cultural ties with Russia.

Orange politicians weren't aware of the Party of the Regions' ability to represent the genuine interests of eastern Ukrainians, Mr. Donii said. "There was a myth that all Regions voters weren't aware and were being duped by television and billboards," Mr. Donii said. "But, for example, Kharkiv is an intellectual city that will vote for Yanukovych. It doesn't mean Kharkiv has less information, or that they've been fooled."

The Party of the Regions is trying to remain moderate in its politics, and Mr. Yanukovych has stressed the need to balance politics between the United States, the European Union and Russia.

Nevertheless, the Party of the Regions clearly has retained a pro-Russian bent and opposes Ukrainian membership into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union. Instead, the party advocates membership in the Single Economic Space, an economic alliance with Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan.

Economically, the Party of the Regions can best be described as oligarchic, said Ivan Lozowy, president of the Kyiv-based Institute of Statehood and Democracy, which is exclusively financed by Ukrainian business donations.

Eastern Ukrainian oligarchs, or business tycoons, have an enormous presence on the party's electoral list with the expectation that the Party of the Regions will defend their business interests.

Therefore, the party can't be ascribed as having a free-market or socialist approach because it doesn't adopt economic policy along theoretical lines, experts said.

Campaign strategy

The Party of the Regions 2006 campaign has primarily based its strategy on one issue: the economy.

It's an area where President Viktor Yushchenko is particularly vulnerable, as Ukrainians have just lived through a year of 10.3 percent inflation and a natural gas crisis that may produce a ripple effect driving prices even higher.

"Strategy for Ukraine's Economic Development" was the theme of the Party of Regions' biggest press event held so far this year.

The government's economic performance is also the theme of the party's television ads that appear several times a day on the major stations. The Party of the Regions slogans have been "A Better Life Right Now!" and "Prosperity to the People, Power to the Regions!"

Party of the Regions television ads constantly stress the need to make Russian the second state language of Ukraine, even though that's not likely to occur because of a lack of political will in the Parliament. The party is merely exploiting the language issue to garner votes, political experts said.

About 24 percent of Ukrainians support the Party of the Regions, according to the National Institute for Strategic Research, a government research agency that performs work for the president and his Secretariat.

Most polls, however, show the Party of the Regions winning at least 30 percent of the vote. About 31 percent of the electorate will select the Party of the Regions, according to the Western-financed Democratic Initiatives Foundation.

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