Election Syndrome: Seeking Strategic Packaging
The parliamentary elections are approaching slowly but surely. Some domestic political analysts believe early elections to Verkhovna Rada will remain a real alternative for the next several months. Hence, party conventions of late have been assessed primarily in the parties’ preparedness for the campaign. Needless to say, every party tries to find its own route of approach to the moment of truth, so it can appear in best shape. At the same time, there is something in common between these attempts to find a place in the sun: features and trends.
Mykola Tomenko, noted Ukrainian political scientist, points to ideology as the decisive criterion in identifying the political organization of any given party. In this sense, however, competitive campaign strategies appear to be getting ahead of ideological programs. This is confirmed by the congresses of the Socialist Party, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Labor Ukraine, and Labor Party of Ukraine over the weekend before last. In the first two programs one could see basic changes, meaning that even organizations enjoying stable voters’ support and known for their conservative stand (this mostly applies to OUN) are trying to work out attractive and competitive programs and strategies.
Socialist leader Oleksandr Moroz seems to have finally realized that any further competition with the Communists for the same constituency holds little promise. This can well explain his criticism in the address of CPU and Peasant leadership attending the convention and his distancing himself from his Left allies. Moroz’s political strategy has recently come down to establishing and maintaining cooperation not so much with the ideologically affiliated Left, as with the Left- and Right-Center parties. This, in turn, makes one wonder about the actual problem facing the Socialist Party and its leadership — that it consists in developing a non-ideological alliance, rather than an ideology it could find edible. If one considers the situation within the context of the approaching parliamentary elections, there is a strong likelihood that the Socialist leader sees himself at the head of a campaign bloc. The latter could take shape based on SPU’s alliance with small cen trist groups, since the heavy-caliber political structures are not likely to let Moroz take the lead.
The convention also enacted a new SPU program as a kind of Left-centrist manifesto, although the old clichОs — particularly Moroz’s favorite subject of the countryside — are still there. While declaring their traditional “pluralism,” the Socialists make a special point that set sale-and- purchase conditions do not apply to arable land (one is reminded of a popular Moscow TV Puppet Show featuring presidential candidate Ziuganov who struggle to pronounce “private land ownership” and only managed “proper land ownership”). Once again they declared that the land must belong to those who work it and that the forceful introduction of full-scale private property relationships in the village is not meant to raise production efficiency but has “altogether different objectives; there is no coincidence about all those secret plans of acquisition and allocation of Ukrainian land in the leading countries of the world.” The Socialist vocabulary and approaches to the “agrarian issue” are practically the same as those of the Communists; both are carried away far back into Soviet times. One point is worth noting here: any bills aimed at the agrarian reform were blocked precisely by the Left, particularly when the Left majority in Parliament was led by Oleksandr Moroz. The Left is not interested in this reform and the reason is clear: once the peasants can have their land as private property, the number of those still supporting the collectivists — Communists and Socialists — will show a dramatic decline. In other words, the Socialists demonstrate a Communist, rather than social democratic approach to the problem of land ownership.
On the other hand, the SPU could not immediately assert in its program a sharp turn toward social democratic principles. If the SPU leadership had tried to discard all those “traditional” values there and then, the consequence would not be reduced to the walkout of several hundred SPU members (according to Oleksandr Moroz, 212 persons quit SPU to join Solidarity).
Two other party conventions claiming Left-Center strategies took place recently.
Chronologically, Labor Ukraine held its constituent convention a day earlier than the Labor Party of Ukraine. Ihor Sharov’s “new-old” Laborites hastily congregated at Pushcha-Ozerna, while Mykhailo Syrota’s “veterans” held an extraordinary convention in Zaporizhzhia. The opponents did what is best described as a divorce in absentia. Practically no dirty linen was washed in public and no mutual accusations reached the public ear, although it is hard to believe that there were none. The conflict between the two parties — and quite recently among members of the same party — is explained very simply; party leader Mykhailo Syrota refused to accept the rules of the game actually established, in the party proper and faction, by second tier figures rather than by the leader. Note that he did not say no before learning about the rules but afterward, when he discovered he no longer liked them. Actually, “why” is no longer relevant. Rather, it is “what”: what happened after Syrota called it quits, paradoxically taking with him most of the membership. In the highly unlikely case the second string did not pay much attention at the time, now all those lawmakers, left without party support and faced with the approaching elections, decided to hold the fort in public politics, setting up Labor Ukraine with Ihor Sharov at the head.
This party became the flesh and blood of a parliamentary group bearing the same name, and nor was it coincidental that most legislators in it joined the party. Yuli Yoffe became chairman of the political council; Andriy Derkach will run the party secretariat; Viktor Pinchuk and Oleksandr Yedin joined the political executive committee.
In a commentary for The Day, Yuli Yoffe stressed that the party, as well as the fraction, will focus on harmonizing relationships within the employee-employer-regime triangle. He said the party’s social base consists of “all working people” and its ideology is Left-Center.
Another point worthy of note is that expressly strategic, rather than ideological techniques were applied in splitting the [original] party in the first place, contrary to party functionaries’ assurances. The congresses were held out of the public eye, acting on the principle “the first to come is right,” along with all those Left- centrist mottoes that sound especially attractive in view of parliamentary elections, are evidence that the parties remain in good shape. The fact that Syrota could not get the party under control also points to good planning and timing. Of two equally promising candidates during the elections the one with a stronger financial footing will stand a better chance.
