Chornovil Addresses “Let’s Be Together” Slogan to Regime, Not Rukh

It was difficult to call the March 7 assembly of Vyacheslav Chornovil’s Rukh representatives a congress. For it was nothing but a rally in support of Mr. Chornovil with all that such a lovefest implies.

Everybody noted Mr. Chornovil looked downcast in the first few days after the extraordinary congress of Rukh democrats.

One suspects his state was caused not so much by the reformers’ triumph as by the quiet panic among his trusted lieutenants. Mr. Taniuk lost no time in stunning everyone by stating that “now only the socially disadvantaged remain in Rukh,” broadly hinting that the democrats had taken away with them almost all Rukh’s financiers — Slobodian, Ishchenko, and Hudyma.

The situation with candidate Udovenko did not inspire optimism, either. As befits an honest person, Mr. Udovenko said he “remains with Chornovil, but how long will he have enough strength to let himself be used?” asks Mr. Lavrynovych. Moreover, Mr. Udovenko cannot help but understand that Chornovil set himself up in the presidential candidacy situation.

Mr. Chornovil himself also had to admit that “Rukh’s single candidate feels uncomfortable in this situation,” but he calmed himself and the latter by stating “Udovenko’s popularity is always on the rise.” And the main reason Mr. Chornovil plunged into a brief period of sulking was the President’s public dissociation from Rukh’s wrangles. Of course, Mr. Chornovil had every right to expect Leonid Kuchma to openly side with him in the conflict.

But this did not happened, and the President only skimmed over the Rukh problems saying something like “Let them find their own way out.” If he had wanted to tell Chornovil’s people, “Yes, I’m with you,” he could have done so indirectly, for example, via the Ministry of Justice. However, there were no charges by the Ministry of Justice of any gross statute violations or illegitimacy of the tenth congress, although Mr. Chornovil told The Day’s correspondent that “such violations sent chills down the spine of those in the Ministry of Justice.”

On the contrary, some Chornovil people suggest they “will have to appeal the Ministry of Justice decision in court.”

Meanwhile, it is absolutely clear to Rukh democrats what their former leader will not understand: “In this situation, Mr. Kuchma may gain more dividends from having no serious opponents in the Popular Movement of Ukraine, while he does not need today any public support from the right flank,” Mr. Lavrynovych is convinced.

It is this understanding, rather than “pragmatic and careerist interests,” as Mr. Chornovil would have it, that makes opponents out of yesterday’s comrades-in-arms. And this was confirmed only too well by overall vote over Inter-Parliamentary Assembly membership, when both Rukh and Rukh-1 managed to preserve their political image of state builders. No doubt, this unanimity deprived Mr. Chornovil of one of his main trumps, the chance to declare the dissidents traitors to the national interests who are drifting toward the fat cats. It is also not ruled out that this was the reason why Mr. Chornovil had to “alter the previously planned character of the second stage of Rukh’s ninth congress and make it a more organizational than political affair.”

This was absolutely necessary, for the second stage of the Ninth Congress did everything it could to demonstrate its legitimacy, especially after Kostenko supporters distributed literature in the hall, stating that the action was illegal.

The mandate commission, elected after some strife, repeatedly emphasized that 547 delegates were registered, while a quorum required 510, and that the gathering had been called on the initiative of 13 regional Rukh organizations. It was no accident that Chornovil seated others in the presidium, for the support of regional structures is his trump, his proof that the structured portion of his body remains with him. This is why he was not stingy with compliments accorded the rank and file. “On the regional level, they do not understand what happened because the conflict did not have deep roots in the party, and we were held hostage to factional struggle,” said Les Taniuk.

Reticence was also out of fashion when talking about opponents. Delegates loved hearing about those “who cast shadows of dusk on the national idea,” “being bought by fat cats who are privatizing power in our country,” and “the lackeys of commercial structures.”

Perhaps this was why amid all the noise of ovations were heard some of those same rank-and-file Rukh members, saying, “Authoritarianism in Rukh is our fault. Our cells have long turned into Rukh sects run in violation of the statute. We made an ordinary man, Chornovil, a great politician, a god, and began to warm ourselves in the radiance of his glory. This is why Rukh stopped developing as a party.”

Along with the renewed slogan of Let’s Be Together, the Rukh leadership could not resist the temptation “to brand and curse those who organized a putsch in Rukh.”

It is noteworthy that, in spite of Rukh-1 leaders’ statement that “NRU always stood in the way of those in power and that is why there were attempts to make short work of it,” the delegates somehow did not raise the natural question of further relations between the Rukh and the current authorities. Instead, the leaders tried to draw the delegates into debates over confirming Hennady Udovenko’s selection as Rukh’s sole candidate at the 1999 elections.

Mr. Chornovil himself expressed his attitude to the prospective cooperation with the executive bodies in the words of his fellow party members, which naturally enabled him to remain “clean” in the eyes of credulous regional delegates. Yet, Mr. Chornovil told the authorities figuratively that “Mr. Cherniak had been Pavlo Lazarenko’s advisor,” “Mr. Hudyma was an loyal advocate of Yevhen Marchuk,” and “Mr. Zhovtiak was leading Rukh toward Yuliya Tymoshenko.” “There is a danger of a single national democratic candidate being transformed into a purely democratic one, and the latter may be in this case with both Messrs. Marchuk and Moroz,” he warned.

The Rukh leader thus killed two birds with one stone: first, he warned against the unreliability of Rukh democrats, and, secondly, he assured those in power he “would not let a different candidate graze in Rukh’s electoral pasture.”

It is telling that those in power in turn vividly showed their unambiguous attitude toward Rukh-1 and its leader. On Sunday, not a single television channel said a word about such an important event as the second stage of Rukh’s ninth congress. Such demonstrative silence perhaps means that those in power do not think it necessary even to take note of Mr. Chornovil’s and his team’s floundering. On the other hand, this amounts to a virtual recognition of the legitimacy of Rukh’s opposition tenth congress and its leader Yuri Kostenko. Perhaps it is the reformed Rukh that will be asked to participate in a coalition government.

Rukh members’ attitude toward Chornovil’s congress was also very cool, although all Rukh’s standing partners — People’s Democratic Party (NDP), Democratic Party, Republican Christian Party, and even Reforms and Order, its main ally in the bloc — sent their representatives who made a quick job of wishing Rukh to “preserve its integrity” but suggested no recipes of reconciliation. “There is great danger that the allies, who came to fathom the depth of the inner-party abyss, are preparing to take the initiative to unite the national democratic forces, and then Rukh will be led, not leading,” one congress delegate feared. Perhaps, aware of the fact that the Reforms and Order representatives had been sent to the ninth congress precisely for the purpose of neutralizing a bloc partner, Mr. Chornovil insisted so hard on putting on the agenda an item about confirming the mandate of Rukh’s single presidential candidate.

In this connection, the position of Mr. Udovenko himself deserves special attention. He made it clear he was unlikely to be used as an instrument of political struggle. He spelled out his clear-cut opinion of “cursing of putsch organizers, which apparently runs counter to Mr. Chornovil’s viewpoint, and also dispelled some illusions, saying, “it will be far from easy for Rukh to collect a million signatures.”

“I bet he will teach everybody a lesson,” a delegate whispered in delight behind my back. Indeed, Mr. Udovenko remains the single presidential candidate for both Chornovil and Kostenko followers. His loyalty to Mr. Chornovil is unlikely to go that far: it is not ruled out Mr. Udovenko “intends to see his presidential campaign through” with an altogether different part of NRU.