Ukrainian Right Unites Under Anti-Presidential Slogans
On Sunday January 21 the national democratic forces gathered in a foundation meeting to set up the Ukrainian Right coalition. Spurred by the dismissal of Yuliya Tymoshenko from her ministerial post by President Kuchma, the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) Party also decided to join. In all, 33 Ukrainian political parties signed the declaration on entering the coalition. Of these, only two might be known to grassroots voters, Batkivshchyna and the Ukrainian Peoples’ Movement, the branch of Rukh led by Yuri Kostenko. The latter party actually initiated the coalition’s establishment.
At the meeting, four more prospective members of the Ukrainian Right were named amid grave silence, the People’s Movement of Ukraine (Hennady Udovenko’s Rukh), Reforms and Order (R&O), and Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (KUN), which had earlier formed their own rightist bloc, along with the Republican Christian Party led by Mykola Porovsky. Their representatives failed to turn up at the meeting due to a misunderstanding, judging by the reaction of the newly formed bloc leaders. Let it be recalled, however, that before the forum, on Wednesday January 17, R&O chairman, Viktor Pynzenyk, declared that his party was not going to enter the Ukrainian Right coalition. Moreover, commenting to journalists on the plans of some thirty parties to hold the unification forum to discuss the formation of a coalition and joint list in the coming parliamentary elections, Pynzenyk said it was the first time he had heard about it.
More on the elections: one of the major goals of the Ukrainian Right, as stated in its declaration, is to “create on the basis of the coalition an electoral bloc for joint participation in future election campaigns of all levels.” As a result, instead of a broad rightist coalition, voters will get two rightist blocs, given that Batkivshchyna could be called a rightist party. The representatives of the Ukrainian Right, however, are confident that “political realities will force the leaders of these parties (R&O, Rukh-Kostenko, KUN, and others) to understand the need for a broad coalition and to join it.
Ukrainian Christian Democratic Party leader Oles Serhiyenko said in an interview with The Daythat the reluctance of the parties mentioned to join the Ukrainian Right coalition could be explained by their present vulnerability. According to him, R&O refused to cooperate with other rightist forces because of its “far from spotless track record” and faced with a grim prospect that its former sins might be raked up, as has been amply shown by reprisals against Tymoshenko. Other parties refrained because the Udovenko-led Rukh has become completely dependent on those in power, the Republican Christian Party is eating out of Kuchma’s hand, while KUN lost most of its members after Slava Stetsko was again elected chairperson at the last KUN convention and rejected cooperation with other parties. Still, Mr. Serhiyenko is optimistic about the chances the Ukrainian Right has in the 2002 parliamentary elections.
Without erring too much, what happened might be viewed as an actual split of the conventional rightist forces into, roughly speaking, the moderate Right and a clearly anti-presidential bloc, with both vowing to support the Yushchenko government.
As if in confirmation, shouts of “Ukraine without Kuchma!” and “Bring Kuchma to trial!” occasionally interrupted the signing of the agreement to unite. Addressing the meeting, the leader of the Ukrainian Conservative Christian Party, Stepan Khmara, long missed by Ukraine’s political world for his trademark expressiveness, declared, “Ukraine will have a chance only if Kuchma and his pack of criminals are removed from power.” By contrast, Rukh-Kostenko representative and Environmental Protection Minister Ivan Zayets disagreed with The Day’s correspondent who called the Ukrainian Right a coalition aimed against the incumbent President. Despite the obvious euphoria at the meeting, as always, there was no real unity. In the meantime, success in the elections does not hinge on simply adding the parties election potentials, as evidenced by recent sociological polls. This especially true since all 33 parties put together will have a hard time scraping together the votes needed to clear the 4% election threshold required for representation in Verkhovna Rada.
