SDU: "The economy, not society, should be market-based"

The first question that occurred to me when I was reading an invitation to attend the SDU congress as The Day's correspondent was this: "Why does Ukraine need yet a fourth party calling itself social democratic?" However, the congress itself started its work by answering the questions about why they were gathered: "Are we true social democrats, or are we creating a new party to defend the narrow interests of our leaders? Do we have a real, not just ceremonial, candidate for President of Ukraine?"

WHO WILL RAISE THE FLAG OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
IN UKRAINE?

But has this flag not yet been raised ? SDPU(o) ran it up with its "united" hand during the last Verkhovna Rada elections and, with this flag in hand, entered Parliament.

However, the party leadership, pursuing a policy of supporting the executive power when it comes to the implementation of the United Social Democrats' business projects, seems to have carefully folded it up and, wrapping it in the mothballs of "constructive criticism," put it away in a drawer to await better days. Better days for SDPU(o) are likely to come around the next parliamentary elections, when the electorate will again need attractive ideas.

Mr. Peresunko stressed in his speech that SDPU(o) in fact supports the authorities and their ruinous course. The other two social democratic parties have no serious political leverage. In his words, the SDU is the only party created on the grassroots level and not at the expense of existing parties. He hopes all Social Democrats will unite on a single political platform traditional for their European counterparts, and will finally identify who is a real Social Democrat professing the ideas of this movement and who only uses the relevant terminology to pursue their personal or clan interests. Mr. Peresunko said that one of SDU's principal ideas is: "The economy, not society, should be market-based."

The creation of the SDU has in fact placed the SDPU(o) leadership in quite a complicated position.

First of all, SDU has deprived them of their monopoly on social democratic values, i.e., the idea of a market economy and reforms (attractive to the nascent middle class) and the mechanisms of social security (attractive to barely surviving working people and pensioners). Add to this the inspiring example of West European countries (Great Britain and Germany) which have Social Democrats in power.

Secondly, SDU already has a brilliant leader in the person of Yevhen Marchuk.

Thirdly, most of SDPU(o) regional representatives announced at the party congress held late last year that they would be supporting none other than Mr. Marchuk in the presidential elections.

Chairman of SDPU(o) Odesa oblast organization Volodymyr Maksymovych said in an interview with TsZhI (Center for Journalistic Research)  that 70% of party members stick to the opinion that today there is no alternative to Mr. Marchuk as a presidential candidate. "In this connection I do not rule out emergence of a revolutionary situation in SDPU(o), where 'the grassroots do not want and the upper crust cannot.' Otherwise, regional leaders who do not want to support Leonid Kuchma's candidature will be purged," Mr.  Maksymovych believes .

Besides, SDPU(o) cannot accuse SDU (as was the case with former United Social Democratic leader Vasyl Onopenko) of dissension, intrigues, and leadership ambitions for the simple reason that SDU did not emerge from SDPU(o) fold.

This way or another, the Social Democratic Union has again raised the flag of social democracy, which bears the motto "Law, Order, Justice," and voiced its opposition to the executive.

SIMPLE ANSWERS
TO NOT-SO-SIMPLE
A QUESTION: "WHAT FORCED PEOPLE TO
CREATE THE NEW PARTY?"

Svitlana BARABASH, professor at Kirovohrad State Technical University:
"I have joined SDU because I hope that the central element in the new party's concept - protection of the individual and his/her rights - will become everyday practice rather than a slogan. What we need are not curtsies to the authorities dropped by SDPU(o) leaders but real actions to defend the working people."

Kazymir LIUTY, pensioner and war veteran:

"Many fresh graves have appeared in the cemetery in my native village. I have never seen such things before in my life. What has happened to Ukraine? I'd been working since I was ten and the government gave me a 67-hryvnia pension. I believe in Mr. Marchuk, for I think: only his strong hand can pull the country from the abyss of crisis."

Maksym SHKURO, delegate from Kyiv:

"One must make the people regain their trust in the opposition. I believe the main thing is the decentralization of power. The Constitution clearly states that the people of Ukraine have the right to self-government. For example, residents of my neighborhood know better how to spend money coming to the local budget.

Vladyslav ZHURAVSKY, editor of a Svitlovodsk district newspaper, Kirovohrad oblast:

"A committee called With Yevhen Marchuk into the Third Millennium has been set up in Svitlovodsk. Pressure groups have also been organized in other districts. But I think Mr. Marchuk is a very tolerant person. We must undoubtedly take power in our hands. One must return to the people their faith in the future.

A THIRD FORCE

The creation of SDU may be perhaps considered an attempt to answer the question which all too often pervades the mind of voters before the presidential elections: if not Kuchma or the Left (Symonenko or Moroz), then who?

Most analysts agree that the Right - Rukh and Reforms and Order with their claim to be a third force - have put forward Hennady Udovenko as a candidate going nowhere.

However, for the Social Democratic Union to become a third force, it must form a broad coalition of those who reject returning to the totalitarian communist past, on the one hand, and understand, on the other hand, that the same communist nomenklatura, now in power, is not only unable but also unwilling to carry out reforms.

NICHE OF
UNCOMPROMISING
ATTITUDES IN POLITICS
IS STILL FREE

SDU has stated its unconditional opposition to the current regime.

Member of the SDU board and Verkhovna Rada deputy Olekdsandr Chubatenko quoted official statistics: 27 million Ukrainians live below the poverty line. Ukraine's domestic and international debt has reached $18 billion, having increased threefold in the years of Mr. Kuchma's rule. Freedom of speech has practically been abolished. Only those media survive which sing praises of the President. State-run TV channels immediately confirmed this: they brazenly ignored the formation of SDU in their news bulletins.

Mr. Chubatenko made what amounts to an official SDU statement: "The niche of uncompromising attitudes in politics is still free. SDU must fill it."

I personally liked very much the phrase of a Social Democratic Union delegate: "When the people do not trust the state, the country still has a chance. When the people also disbelieve the opposition, that country has no chance." These words are worth being written on the entrance to Parliament.