After second round

A Chinese maxim says that even the longest road will come to an end some day. In our case, this kind of road can be compared with a difficult and exhausting election campaign. Very many followers of the two candidates breathed a sigh of relief despite the concrete results of this grueling race. “This nightmare is over at last,” a local council member, close to Yulia Tymoshenko’s inner circle, told us. He was not exactly original because the opposite side was thinking in almost the same way.

Yes, there is still a likelihood of lawsuits, some protest scenarios, or small-size rallies on the streets, but this will not change anything. The entire country and the outside world, not only key politicians, are tired. Everybody wants some kind of certainty, at least for a short time. Yet this so-much-desired goal still remains as unreachable as the skyline. There is going to be no pause, for party and movement leaders have ticked off a new date, May 30, on their table and wall calendars. Somebody may be finding solace in the fact that the next vote, in the local council elections, is about five months away and this will be a middle-distance race, not a marathon. Meanwhile, experts are assessing losses and gains.

CALCULATIONS AND MISCALCULATIONS

The second round brought along nothing new in comparison with the first one. No sensations occurred. The arithmetic results of the first vote promised Tymoshenko no chances at all. The question could only be about the margin between the candidates and the resulting likelihood of scenarios that go outside the limits of an election process. What is more, both sides scared, above all, themselves with this kind of actions. So they got down to mobilizing their own electorate as well as luring other candidates’ supporters. The latter was more important for Tymoshenko, although the “white-blues” also needed to top up their voting resource.

Ms. Tymoshenko was facing a virtually unsolvable problem. She needed to poll at least 25 percent of votes. The practice of Ukraine and other countries shows that practically nobody has ever managed to do so. Her last-minute spurt deserves respect, but “a little” does not count. And the remaining gap reflects not so much the efforts made as the strategic and tactical mistakes committed. It is also true that the “white-blues” are no less responsible for the final result and the slim margin between the two candidates.

Their campaign was totally unimaginative, oriented to voters’ inertia, and abounded in the candidate’s awkward phrases which are now the subject of jokes.

In comparison with the 2004 rerun election, Viktor Yanukovych has only slightly increased his electoral base, there are no new regions for him to look to, and his “safety margin” is minimal. His followers prefer not to mention this, as they blow the trumpet, beat the drum, and lavish praises on him, but this will not change anything. A sluggish and lackluster campaign, designed for an unsophisticated and easy-to-manipulate voter, might as well have ended with an opposite result. Winners are not supposed to be judged, but it is too early for the “white-blues” to dance with glee. To use a boxers’ phrase, Yanukovych won by a technical knockout and, hence, he will hardly live an untroubled life. Taking into account those who voted against all, he in fact finished in the minority. In 2004-05, Viktor Yushchenko had far greater support which he then let slip like sand through his fingers. Yanukovych does not have such a reserve at the beginning of his term. Another alarming sign. Kyiv voted against him. Yanukovych’s growth of 9.81 percent looks pale compared to Tymoshenko’s gain of 29.6 percent on Kyiv’s hills. In Ancient Rome, a slave was put behind the triumpher’s chariot, who would cry out “Cave ne cadas!” (“Take care so you do not fall!”). Yanukovych ought to remember this. If the capital does not support, you can expect nothing good.

With a detailed analysis of Tymoshenko’s miscalculations still to be made, we will only note two strategic mistakes. Firstly, political scientists in her entourage are absolutely wrong to say that she must put the tin lid on the east and the south and focus on western and central regions. By doing so, Tymoshenko readily surrendered the most important, in terms of elections, regions to her rival, for which Yanukovych should thank her from the bottom of his heart. It was really a king’s gift. There was an absolutely wrong interpretation of the 2004 results. What was not taken into account was, first of all, a radical change in societal attitudes, for which reason the previous tactic and strategy should not have been mechanistically applied to the current campaign. Results in the south-eastern regions, except for Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, clearly show that very much has changed. Moreover, nobody is sure that the announced figures reflect the true results of the popular vote. We will not dwell too much on the use of the administrative resource in the south-eastern regions, for this has already been widely discussed. Still, changes are all too apparent. The further to the south and west, the more the picture changes – sometimes to a large extent. Some people in a neighboring country will be surprised if they compare both candidates’ results in the two rounds in the Crimea and Sevastopol. Tymoshenko’s numeral results show a steady growth in spite of all the abovementioned constraints. This raises the question why such a vast electoral reserve was not tapped and no attempts were made to correct this situation.

Secondly, we have already noted that Ms. Tymoshenko has in fact renounced her Dnipropetrovsk origin and renders no assistance to the city and the oblast in tackling their pressing problems, although she used to emphatically promise to do so. What made an extremely negative impression on the city’s residents was lack of the prime minister’s support in the Euro 2012 issue, especially the exclusion of Dnipropetrovsk from the list of the host cities. Does Ms. Tymoshenko not understand that this could not but have political consequences? She also allowed herself to be persuaded that there would be compensation in central and western Ukraine. But she should have remembered that only a high percentage of votes in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast for the Hromada party in the 1998 parliamentary elections allowed her to go through to the Verkhovna Rada and occupy a dignified place there.

Serhii Tihipko collected over 30 percent of votes in Dnipropetrovsk and 22.48 percent in Dnipropetrovsk oblast, compared to Arsenii Yatseniuk’s 6.53 percent. Yulia Tymoshenko showed a somewhat better result in the runoff: slightly more than 14 percent. Anyway, the discarded Tihipko and Yatseniuk ballots amounted to 14.66 percent — they could have made a tangible change to the election results. Considering that Dnipropetrovsk placed second after Donetsk oblast, in terms of electorate turnout, ignoring such opportunities was unreasonable, putting it mildly. Pavlo Lazarenko and Viktor Yanukovych had mastered this election arithmetic well enough, while Yulia Tymoshenko apparently hadn’t, so she is paying the price. She should have paid more attention to Ukraine’s central rather than western regions when planning her campaign trips, focusing on Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Mykolaiv. Then she would stand a chance.

Another factor is Tymoshenko’s local election headquarters’ markedly inadequate performance, especially in Dnipropetrovsk oblast. There were personnel replacements after the first round, but the game was lost. This presidential campaign shows that personnel problems remain on top of Tymoshenko’s political agenda. Not coincidentally, she has never dwelt on her team, avoiding the subject by making general statements about having enough experts to rely upon. For her the situation was made somewhat easier by the opposing camp having exactly the same problems. Yanukovych’s campaign HQ in Dnipropetrovsk oblast showed a matchingly poor performance. The first round’s goofs were glaringly apparent, the results being disastrous, so personnel replacements had to be made, even if on a smaller scale and without much ado. The white-blue camp was lucky to take advantage of the [yellow] opponent’s clumsy organization.

With all participants in the presidential race having their grievances concerning the election procedures, the “white-red” would be better off by admitting their defeat and refraining from launching fraud lawsuits, all the more so that recent developments, including court hearings, are enough proof that this tactic is doomed from the outset; that procrastinating the official recognition of the presidential election’s result will serve no purpose, except inflicting further financial losses. The important thing now is acting in the political domain, determining the [winner’s] tactic in the Verkhovna Rada. However, judging by Tymoshenko’s statements made during a sitting of the BYuT faction, the course is set on confrontation and lawsuits. Tymoshenko is treading on thin ice; her current policy threatens another rift, considering that some members of her faction wanted to recognize the presidential campaign’s results. Unless she wins the lawsuits, Tymoshenko’s political leadership may well be called into question.

Boris Kolesnikov, in an interview with www.gazeta.ru, offered what I personally regard as an idyllic picture of our government being quickly replaced. The current Ukrainian parliament’s membership offers no such hopes. Shaping up a new coalition, using the available resources, would be easier said than done. There will be no problems dealing with the communists: certain documents have been signed and the Reds aren’t likely to raise hue and cry siding with the winner because they have no alternative. The same is true of the Lytvyn bloc. The man is perfectly content with having his current status [as Ukrainian Speaker], he will take care of his Parteigenossen’s job placements later: they will have to make do with what’s left, anyway.

Our Ukraine appears to be facing the biggest problems. There will be no coalition without at least some OU members signing up, so this faction is determined to play its trump card. It is, however, necessary to bear in mind that forming a coalition with the Party of Regions is a big threat to OU’s future. What they consider to be an accomplishment today may well turn into a shattering defeat tomorrow. The fact remains that the OU electorate never authorized OU to form such a coalition, so making it would mean openly ignoring the voters’ will, acting contrary to the campaign promises, ending in a disaster during the upcoming local administration and council elections. Such an alliance would be doubtlessly put to good use by Tihipko and Yatseniuk’s political forces. Their people would be breathing down everyone’s neck. In fact, this would be a godsend for Yatseniuk, considering that he is acting hand in glove with OU in the electoral field.

There is one other, ideological, factor to consider. OU would be loath to find itself in the same boat with the communists, with the Party of Regions at the helm, for this would mean losing the remaining voters’ confidence. This would be an irreparable loss, for most voters in the west of Ukraine, retaining their national identity and ideology, wouldregard this as an act of treason. Also, there is the communists’ demand that Yushchenko’s edicts concerning Bandera and Shukhevych be abolished. This is a minor issue on the Party of Regions’ agenda. Kolesnikov said in the abovementioned interview that “…it’s probably impossible to abolish these edicts, we’ll have to put up with them.” Putting together a train with varying railroad car wheel gauges is an impossible task. By the same token, someone must make or agree to concessions in the political realm. In Ukraine, the weakest link in the chain appears to be in the communist domain. Well, they have long since learned to show a flexible approach, even though they ought to have learned the threatening lesson of Oleksandr Moroz’s political fiasco.

Sophisticated as these problems are, they remain in the background. Economic problems come first, they are much more topical and hard to solve. Yanukovych has spoken during his campaign appearances about Ukraine having to pay 70 dollars per 1,000 m2 of gas. Russia’s Gazprom kept silent and then made it clear that any changes to the gas accords [signed by Tymoshenko in Moscow] were out of the question. Yanukovych will also have to handle personnel problems, precisely the stumbling block for the new coalition, when it may well turn out to be a stillborn child. Yanukovych has a manpower reserve, all those BYuT defectors, but these political turncoats will demand a reward for their treason — or political foresight — whichever way you look at it. They will keep asking for more as the talks with OU keep getting from bad to worse.

There is only one unifying factor for OU, the communists, and Lytvyn bloc: the threat of disbanding the Verkhovna Rada and appointing an early parliamentary election. If and when VR’s PR and BYuT factions suffer manpower losses, BYuT is likely to end up facing disaster. The new Ukrainian parliament promises to show new faces and haggling over posts will start using different terms and conditions. The constitutional procedures of forming a coalition, passing a no-confidence vote for the cabinet, forming a new cabinet, take a lot of time and effort, considering that the local election campaigns are gaining momentum. There is another disuniting factor to be considered. Tymoshenko isn’t likely to twiddle her thumbs while having the executive manpower resource under control. In other words, many of the winner’s camp and turncoats may well pay dearly for their rash decisions.

This presidential election has no stability in store for Ukraine, in the nearest or distant future. The political balance sheet is in the red. It’s high time for our political elite to ponder their country’s problems rather than individual ambitions. This appears to be a considerably harder task than winning a presidential race, the more so that the next campaign has actually started. Unless they get the situation under control, we may find ourselves casting ballots for a new head of state next spring.