Congress shows Yushchenko has lost control over Our Ukraine People's Union (11/26/06)

Congress shows Yushchenko has lost control over Our Ukraine People's Union

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Although Viktor Yushchenko is still the figurehead of the Our Ukraine's People's Union (OUPU), the political party's real leadership demonstrated that the Ukrainian president has lost any control he ever might have had over the force that led the Orange Revolution.

Three weeks after Mr. Yushchenko called for the party to cleanse its failed leadership in favor of a line-up of fresh faces, its tight inner circle of wealthy businessmen ignored the president's advice and successfully fended off any such attempts at a November 11 party congress.

This tight circle consists mainly of OUPU Acting Political Council Chair Roman Bezsmertnyi; confectionary magnate Petro Poroshenko, whose wealth is estimated at $505 million; and Mykola Martynenko and Oleksander Tretiakov, who made their millions in fuel and energy.

As a result, OUPU may continue to lose its relevance in Ukrainian politics as it is now apparent that the party is under the control of a tight circle of businessmen who demonstrated during the congress the extreme lengths they would take to retain their grip on power.

"The old party 'nomenklatura', the Poroshenko-Bezsmertnyi group, generally controls the situation," said Oles Doniy, a Socialist Party member and chair of the Kyiv-based Center for Political Values Research, which is supported by Ukrainian citizens.

"Though the democratic opposition personified by Mykola Katerynchuk managed to get the majority's support, nonetheless, the 'nomenklatura' managed to stayed in power," Mr. Doniy added.

The farcical manner in which OUPU has conducted its party congresses revealed a party in deep crisis, spiraling towards rockbottom, political experts concurred.

Three weeks earlier, Mr. Yushchenko declared that the OUPU was mired in "a serious internal crisis," stating he didn't want the party to become "some kind of privately held stock company, where the main stockholders can monopolistically decide what is need for the party."

Following those dramatic words, Mr. Bezsmertnyi closed the meeting after only a half-hour and postponed it until November 11, in what political experts described as a political maneuver to reassert his grip on power.

The second session of the congress, meanwhile, was an 11-hour marathon session during which opposing delegates shouted and shoved each other throughout the day, coming close to fisticuffs with Mr. Poroshenko, who led the proceedings from the on-stage presidium.

A vote was held to replace the members of the party's leadership, the Political Council, which is largely blamed for the party's diminished popularity and government influence.

However, the reform-minded opposition led by Mr. Katerynchuk, a national deputy, failed to muster the necessary two-thirds vote to usher in a new leadership, throwing the congress into near chaos.

Voting against the proposal were Messrs. Bezsmertnyi, Poroshenko and Martynenko, directly thwarting Mr. Yushchenko's recommendation that a new leadership emerge.

"Our Ukraine has been exposing internal problems without solving them, which is dirty laundry in the minds of voters," said Ivan Lozowy, president of the Kyiv-based Institute of Statehood and Democracy, which is exclusively financed by Ukrainian business donations.

Messrs. Poroshenko, Martynenko and Tretiakov control the votes of large blocks of OUPU delegates through financial obligations in the oblast party organizations, political experts said.

"These three people control well over two-thirds of the regional organizations," Mr. Lozowy explained. "They are very difficult to dislodge, without a complete shake-up of the party, which is very difficult. They are the major stumbling block in turning Our Ukraine 180 degrees around and gaining public support, instead of losing it as they are currently doing."

Despite the "serious internal crisis," President Yushchenko demonstrated his now legendary detachment from Ukrainian politics by not attending the second session of the congress, instead joining his family for a concert performed by Italian pop star Toto Cutugno.

The president's lack of involvement in OUPU's leadership has created a vacuum in which the inner circle freely operates and often abuses its authority, political experts said, as demonstrated repeatedly during his presidency.

During this year's coalition-forming negotiations, Mr. Poroshenko proved to be a major stumbling block in forming a revived Orange government when he aggressively vied to become chairman of the Verkhovna Rada instead of Oleksander Moroz.

During negotiations to join the National Unity Coalition, many political experts believe Mr. Bezsmertnyi was simply ignoring Mr. Yushchenko when declaring Our Ukraine's opposition as the president was simultaneously calling on him to return to talks to join the coalition government.

"Our Ukraine has been on a suicide course for the last year and a half and it doesn't seem likely to veer off its path because the lack of direction given by President Yushchenko," said Mr. Lozowy.

"It's not only his lack of leadership as president, but lack of leadership as the informal chair of Our Ukraine," he added.

Rather than follow Mr. Yushchenko's advice to elect a new political council, the party's inner circle announced it would hold primaries in regional elections to select new candidates during the next several months.

Political experts described the idea of primaries as a mere delaying tactic enabling members of the inner circle to prolong their place in OUPU's power structure.

The congress fiasco prompted Mr. Katerynchuk to announce on November 13 that he was quitting the ranks of OUPU and launching a new political party that he hopes will provide the Ukrainian electorate with a more democratic alternative.

"In a year, this party [OUPU] won't interest anyone in society," he said.

The most interesting development of the party congress, in the view of Mr. Doniy, is the appearance and speech delivered by Yurii Lutsenko, Ukraine's minister of internal affairs, who was a key figure in the Orange Revolution who still enjoys a fairly strong public rating. Mr. Lutsenko has close ties with the Socialist Party of Ukraine, though he isn't an official member.

Rather than declaring his willingness to join OUPU, Mr. Lutsenko offered to lead a new political force that would include OUPU regional leaders, as well as Pora and Reforms and Order Party members.

In his November 13 press conference, the 38-year-old Mr. Katerynchuk called on Ukraine's up-and-coming politicians to unite into a new political force, naming specifically Mr. Lutsenko, first assistant to the Presidential Secretariat Chair Arsenii Yatseniuk, Presidential Advisor Taras Stetskiv and Our Ukraine politician Ruslan Kniazevych.

He said he hopes the party will support liberal economic principles.

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