What happened had been expected by most. The NDP convention voted for Leonid
Kuchma and party leader Matviyenko with his like-minded colleagues called
it quits. In a word, everything went according to the scenario he had predicted:
the Presidential Administration wanted the NDP's hide and got it.
When on the very first day the convention voted on the presidential
nomination by secret ballot it became clear that the nomenklatura was not
in such total control as had seemed. The large monitor at the press center
showed a close-up of the podium as the secret ballot was put to the vote
and the expression on Yevhen Kushnariov's face was a saga about one torn
between democratic and nomenklatura emotions. Holding up his card, he glanced
left where Premier Pustovoitenko sat and slightly lifted it, then he glanced
right where even Ivan Pliushch wanted secrecy and lowered his card. Finally
he looked straight ahead into the audience and his hand would slowly rise
then drop with a jerk as his eyes fell on certain familiar faces. In a
way, these movements were a graphic manifestation of that confused "majority"
when one knew well what had to be done but was very much afraid of making
a wrong move.
The result - in a way a test of political strength - seemed to baffle
both sides. Valery Pustovoitenko, ruefully shaking his head, was a sorry
sight. An intermission was announced immediately after the vote and Oleksandr
Yemets emerged in the lobby with an elated look in his eyes; he apparently
still found it hard to believe that his "minority" had just received 52%
of the votes in favor of a secret ballot.
Thus the nomenklatura scenario for the delegates - "fall in, eyes on
Kuchma, and company dismissed" - fell through (they expected the convention
to be over by the evening, after meeting the resolution nominating the
current President with a standing ovation). Although everybody understood
that the reserves would be called up during the night to secure the desired
outcome, this was no longer of any fundamental importance. That he received
the nod gave neither him nor the nomenklatura any glory or usefulness.
What mattered more was the capital the NDP democrats want to receive by
uniting the Right flank. This is the first thing. Number two: here was
fresh evidence of Leonid Kuchma's shaky position in the at the apex of
power (considering the reaction of what had only recently been "his" party).
Number three, Minister Tolstoukhov's method of handling the President's
national campaign (aptly described by Artur Bilous as a Tartar invasion)
got a rebuff. Number four, more than one - actually, more than a dozen
- party members overcame their fear.
But perhaps the most important result was the fact that Rukh stalwart
Cherniak, greeting the convention, said from the podium that the People's
Democrats led by Matviyenko had just shown an example of public politics,
raising it to a visibly higher level.
Journalists watching the big show at the press center reacted with marked
enthusiasm, especially on the opening day when Yevhen Kushnariov and Anatoly
Matviyenko read their reports, and of course when Premier Pustovoitenko
took the floor. And time and again one could hear journalists address one
another with something like, "Now isn't that great? But who is going to
tell the public except The Day?" I was glad to hear that and horrified
at the same time, because on the one hand it was a tribute to my paper,
but on the other showed the situation in the country. I suggested to colleagues
that each voice his or her opinion, on or off the record as everybody wished,
on what was happening.
Volodymyr KOROLIUK, Holos Ukrayiny:
What we are all watching shows the amorality of the current regime.
No matter what happens Pustovoitenko will have to go. However, demonstrating
his loyalty to Leonid Kuchma, he is ruining a political force that will
have to pay for its current choice in the next parliamentary elections.
As for Anatoly Matviyenko's report, I must say that I have never heard
any other such courageous, precise, and detailed analysis expressed so
frankly among our political elite. Matviyenko's proposals are the best
ones. He is right, Kuchma as a presidential candidate should not even be
discussed. We can discuss two candidates who would make normal presidents:
Marchuk and Moroz.
Anonymous:
Matviyenko made a brilliant appearance. He voiced something everybody
has kept silent about for at least two years. His speech is extremely important
also because, as the leader of the so-called party of power, he knows what
he is talking about. He was great! All the boys with the cameras in the
audience think so, too.
Larysa TRYLENKO, Vremia-MN, Moscow:
First about the NDP in general. It seems to me that these guys' only
mistake - and they began with the Democratic Platform of the CPSU - is
that they followed those in power, for they wanted everything immediately.
At once they turned into super radicals, arch liberals, and all-out democrats.
So the people simply did not believe all those Party and Komsomol activists
of just the day before. If they had gone all the way as reformists while
in the Communist Party, we would now have a true Social Democratic Party,
something post-Soviet society needs so badly, and not what we have, a pseudo-Social
Democratic sham in the form of SDPU(u). This is something for which I'll
never forgive the NDP boys. Now about what is actually happening. Of course,
no one would be able to hold back the Matviyenko tornado. Even if they
did, it would burst out elsewhere, so they let him have his way here in
his audience, which was sealed off from the rest of the country.
Anonymous:
Matviyenko was brilliant, just brilliant. Both Kushnariov and Pustovoitenko
looked like faded photographs afterward. Compared to his, their arguments
sounded laughable, and we all heard the audience applaud during his report.
I would like to share his hopes. At his last news conference he said that
he hoped the party has a healthy core.
Volodymyr SKACHKO:
It was the first time I felt respect for NDP and its leader. He showed
the real picture with the nomenklatura in Ukraine. For the first time he
provoked a frank discussion and asked the nomenklatura to define its stand
and whether it would play foul or fair. For the first time he asked them
a choice between bootlicking and serving their country's future, and this
future would serve those same nomenklatura members, for not all of them
will be made welcome there. But with them self always comes first and they
look above all to the Presidential Administration. As for Matviyenko,
we were witness to yet another tragedy of an honest man in this country.
* * *
The night came and went and the next day everything was done by the
book. Others took the floor and then the convention voted for an open ballot,
meaning only one candidate, the one required. One provincial voice sounding
a sour note was that of Svitlana Dunets from Cherkasy oblast. She pleaded
from the podium, "Please people, come to your senses! What are we doing
here? We are deceiving Kuchma. Who is going to vote for him?" But hers
was a voice in the wilderness. They even turned a deaf ear to the party
patriarch with membership card No. 1, Academician Kostiantyn Sytnyk who
used simple words to relay a simple inference: Leonid Kuchma could not
achieve anything significant in this country, because "by his nature, intellect,
character, views, finally by his deeds today's President is no politician...
Don't try to look for something that's not there; Kuchma was and has basically
remained a man (design engineer, Candidate of Technological Sciences) who
enjoys the process more than its outcome. Hence his constant worrying about
who gets to the top of what power branch, playing around with ancillary
powers which, when granted, are never used, and waffling this way and that
on economic reform. Because all this is the process, all this is the inner
meaning of the current President. He cannot be different... We must finally
realize that no one is perfect and some just don't measure up. Power is
a very heavy burden and not everybody can carry it."
Kostiantyn Sytnyk's sage words about an inexperienced researcher staging
experiments for the sake of experimenting caused a reaction typical of
a 1917 revolutionary mob being appealed to by a bloody capitalist university
professor. Volodymyr Filenko later asked the audience at large, "Aren't
you ashamed of yourselves?" He might as well address these words to a canine
mating rite in broad daylight on a central street.
Candidate Kuchma received 259 of 344 NDP votes. One can only marvel
at the timing: the previous day Anatoly Matviyenko asked the convention,
rhetorically, "Can't you see that support from the NDP and other parties,
work collectives, collective farmers' meetings - and this support will
become an officially promoted tidal wave sweeping over the country - is
needed merely as a backdrop for large-scale falsification? Are you certain
that you want to be part of it?" Leaving the party, its leader did his
best to warn it against any further wrongdoing. However, that same evening
the people watching television were all for Kuchma. Nobody but Kuchma!
And there was Ihor Franchuk who did a very convincing canvassing bit, and
Yukhym Zviahilsky. As for the latter, one could understand him. He was
for Kuchma lest they throw him behind bars, innocent lamb that he is. He
has been around long enough, so why risk everything under a new President.
What is unfathomable is only why somebody should prefer to spend the next
term next to the toilet in a prison cell and not on the bunk.
Anatoly Matviyenko appealed to his fellow party members: "Please try
to understand: by saving the nomenklatura today - and they will all sign
up for Kuchma because they have to - we are destroying our party. No matter
what the outcome, this nomenklatura has no future and our party still does.
I call on you to be honest politicians. In our country this isn't hard,
for unfortunately there's almost no competition."
He also warned, "To those anxious to retain party membership with the
Premier at its head and to those sacrificing this party by helping the
Premier keep his post, I will say this: wishing Mr. Pustovoitenko every
success, I am not at all sure that, if and when Leonid Kuchma is reelected
our Premier will not be listed as expendable, for some will have to go
anyway taking with them the burden of dissatisfaction with the regime and
its economic failures. Moreover, I am likewise not convinced that this
will not happen before the elections to demonstrate the President's resolute
stand, and this needs a scapegoat. And I am afraid that those believing
that a tame NDP will save Mr. Pustovoitenko from losing his job are wrong.
Rather the contrary. We would all be saved by a strong independent party.
Let other parties play tame, God bless them. Even now it is obvious that
SDPU(u) has got hold of the President and won't let go, not if it can help
it, offering him membership and other things one cannot reasonably refuse.
And I am not sure that there are many in this audience who would want to
serve characters like Surkis, Volkov, and those they would bring with them.
Yet this looks like a very real prospect and will become a reality if this
party does not lift itself above the current interests of the nomenklatura."
The party did not do so. It was precisely as Leonid Kuchma received
the majority of votes that NDP joined the choir accompanying the dangerous
"Left peril" game. "Who is pushing this country toward the Left revanche?
And the regime's tactic consists in combating Yevhen Marchuk and pink Oleksandr
Moroz by actively playing the ultra-Red Vitrenko and Symonenko cards, holding
the Red Tkachenko in reserve, as one prepared to surrender Ukraine's sovereignty
tomorrow and is convenient in that he does not meddle in business interests
of we all know who. Inference: getting Kuchma and someone like Lukashenka
(Symonenko, Vitrenko, or Tkachenko) in the second round can only be regarded
as an act of high treason, with Kuchma holding 63% of the protesting electorate.
Who will answer for this game and its possible outcome? All things considered,
I'd rather take the risk with Moroz or Marchuk. I am afraid that the Communist
Party of Ukraine is not the main source of the Red peril, but precisely
the executive led by Leonid Kuchma."
The democrats marched out of the audience with a dignified air - and
out of a game which is going from dirty to criminal. That same day they
published a declaration of the Open Politics All-Ukrainian Association.
"We citizens of Ukraine, members of political parties and nonaffiliated,
hereby state that one of the reasons of the deep-going systemic crisis
gripping Ukraine is the predominance of shadow, criminal politics, omnipotence
of clans and oligarchs, and power structures being uncontrollable by the
structures of civil society.
"We reject the artificially imposed choice between the restoration of
totalitarianism and further development of the oligarchic scenario and
declare our intention to establish the All-Ukrainian Open Politics Association.
Whose principal aim we consider the struggle for assertion of the ideal
of a moral, socially responsible, open policy in Ukraine...
"We regard our association as one of the entities of the process of
creating a powerful Right-Centrist party to unite in its ranks today's
scattered political forces oriented toward building up the state, reform,
and the market economy.
"We assign the newly established Organizing Committee, led by Anatoly
Matviyenko, President of the Institute for Open Politics, People's Deputy
of Ukraine, to prepare and hold the association's founding congress in
the immediate future."
Incidentally, the packed press center met the departing NDP leadership
with deafening applause, something few if any political figures have ever
received from media people. And patriarch Kostiantyn Sytnyk got a standing
ovation.
P.S. Oleksandr Karpov has been elected as new chairman of the
parliamentary NDP faction (in place of Anatoly Matviyenko), with Yuri Yekhanurov
and Anatoly Kinakh as his deputies.
Interestingly, Mr. Karpov, a longtime Communist Party history instructor
who wound up in the doghouse after telling a joke about Kuchma working
as President in Tabachnyk's administration, was never considered probable
by either journalists or the NDP leadership. Mr. Karpov is better known
to most people as co-author of the bill on presidential elections.
Both faction meetings held after the congress were also attended by
nine former party members who had left with Mr. Matviyenko, but took no
active part. The new leadership has not announced any major changes in
the party's and faction's tactics and strategy. However, last Wednesday
Anatoly Tolstoukhov, chairman of the NDP Kyiv organization and currently
Minister without portfolio, said it was necessary to cooperate with the
SDPU(u), for these two parties support the same candidate and only they
are capable of forming a democratic majority in Parliament. Mr. Tolstoukhov
added that the NDP has not changed its attitude toward the clans trying
to influence the President.
By Vyacheslav YAKUBENKO, The Day







