Political Situation in Ukraine: An Attempt of Critical Survey

Kiev, one of pro-Tymoshenko manifestations

To understand the present political situation in Ukraine, one should take into account that the ruling Party of Regions, led by the President Yanukovich, has lost it's support to such extent that there is almost no probability that it will survive the coming parliament elections in October 2012 in a lawful way as a ruling party. This is because the myth which it had created about its "professionalism" burst as a soap bubble. It turned out to be that Yanukovych and his adherents had only one purpose - to get power and use it as a tool to support their business and legitimize their half-legal activity. Of course, this could be done only at the price of ordinary people. As a result, the rich have become richer and the poor have become poorer.

there is almost no probability that Yanukovich and his Party of Regions will survive the coming parliament elections in October 2012 in a lawful way as a ruling party.

Arsen Yacenyuk in Verkhowna Rada

Vitaly Klitschko & Tymoshenko

Now, the sole purpose of the regionals is to retain power for the next years. Two major steps have been done in order to achieve this goal. The first step was to change the electoral law. From 2006 until 2011 Ukraine had a proportional system, according to which the Supreme Council (450 deputies) was elected only after party lists. Now, the compound system is introduced, according to which only half of the Supreme Council is elected after party lists and half in unimandated constituencies. There are four reasons why this reform has been introduced. One is because it is easier to use administrative influence and falsify results of the elections in each separate district than in the country as a whole. The second reason is because there is no law prohibiting candidates to ballot in unimandated constituencies and run on party lists at the same time. Therefore, all the advantageous districts, where the Party of Regions still has support, will be given its most popular candidates, who at the same time will be in the list. Thus, the ruling party will gain a double support. The third reason of the reform, as a certain supplement to the previous two, was to raise the electoral threshold from 3% to 5%. This will effectively preclude several smaller oppositional parties, such as Anatoly Gricenko's "People's position", Vladimir Klichko's "UDAR" and, probably, Arseny Yacenyuk's "Front zmin" (The Front of changes) from getting into parliament. At the same time, a law was passed which banned party blocs from taking part in elections and allowed only individual parties to participate. This was done in order to disunite the opposition and preclude its challenging the regime in the united bloc. And the final reason of the electoral reform is that, it will raise chances of the far-rightist nationalistic party "Svoboda" (Freedom) to get into parliament. Often considered to be a project of the Party of Regions, the "Svoboda" doesn't have much support in Ukraine as a whole, but has a huge popularity in three Western oblasts - Lviv, Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk. The "Svoboda" has little chances to get through the 5-percent threshold, but will obviously win in many unimandated districts in the Western region. This will deprive the democratic opposition of much of its support.

The change of the electoral law was the first step that the Party of Regions has undertaken to remain in power. The second step was to imprison Yulia Tymoshenko as a leader of the biggest oppositional party "Bat'kivshchyna" (Motherland).

Tymoshenko & Natalia Korolevska

During the presidency of Victor Yushchenko there were two major parties, which played the crucial role during the Orange revolution in 2004. One was Tymoshenko's "Bat'kivshchyna" and the other was Yushchenko's “Nasha Ukrajina” ("Our Ukraine"). Since, Yushchenko totally discredited himself as a statesman (his support fell from 55% in 2004 to 5% in 2010), Tymoshenko has become the only influential political figure to be associated with ideas of the Orange revolution. It should be noted here that ukrainian politics is highly personalised. People first of all count upon leaders and only then upon parties. Ukrainian political parties are inseparably connented with the popularity of their leaders and play role of certain "vehicles" to bring them to power. So, neutralizing Tymoshenko is a good way to simultaneously paralyze the biggest oppositional party. Except Tymoshenko, the "Bat'kivshchyna" has no leaders of the same popularity and charisma. The second person after her in the party - the former chef of the Ukrainian security service Olexandr Turchynov - is a good manager, but he doesn't have traits necessary to become a popular leader. The Party of Regions understands this very well and that's why it has started a project, called the "Social-Democratic Party" of Natalia Korolevska. Natalia Korolevska was a close associate of Tymoshenko, but after her imprisonment she started her independent political career (without totally alienating herself in the eyes of the people from the "Bat'kivshchyna"). She tries to make an appearance of intelligent and ambitious woman, and in this way to take up the place of Tymoshenko in consciousness of the masses. For this purpose she is continuously shown on all TV channels. However, the problem about Korolevska, is that she speaks only Russian and demonstrates her haughtiness toward Ukrainian. That’s why the western-ukrainian electorate will hardly give votes for her support.

Yuiry Lutsenko & Tymoshenko

The main aim of the lawful case against Tymoshenko was her isolation from political life. The conditions of her imprisonment are very good. Her cell can be compared to a room in a 4-star hotel. She has there a plasma television set, comfortable leather furniture etc. (there are, however, some problems with her health, since there are news of its steady declining). Totally different is the situation about another political prisoner - the former minister of internal affairs Yuri Lutsenko - who has been kept in investigatory isolation for almost a year without sentence. In contrast to Tymoshenko, the Party of Regions wants to punish Lutsenko, who, while being in office, did a lot to summon to legal responsibility many of its leaders, including the present vice-prime minister Boris Kolesnikov. While Tymoshenko's imprisonment is politically motivated, Lutsenko's imprisonment is motivated by personal revenge.

How the situation will develop in future? I think, there are two probable variants. One is that the Party of Regions will remain in power. The situation today closely resembles the year 2002, when the same electoral formula as now was in action. Then the ruling party "Za yedynu Ukrajinu" (For the Unified Ukraine) of President Leonid Kuchma lost to the oppositional Yushchenko's "Our Ukraine" party in polymandated proportional vote, but got majority in the Supreme Council due to many victories in unimandated districts. Hovewer, the support of the Party of Regions now seems to be lower than of Kuchma's "Za yedyny Ukrajinu" in 2002, and there are doubts if all the technologies, described above, will warrant for its victory. In this case the rotation of power will take place and the present opposition will have all the legal and moral rights to summon to responsibility those people who now stay in power.