The All-Ukrainian Hromada Association held its fifth convention behind closed doors in Dnipropetrovsk, making basic changes in the party statute and tactics. In his address Hromada leader Pavlo Lazarenko analyzed the past elections and had to admit: although the party surmounted the 4% barrier and got seats in Parliament, it never became the third main political force, contrary to its leadership's expectations..
Hromada's organization departments (at least in 12 oblasts) performed inadequately and the party ranks packed with accidental people, needs a purge, and re-registration which will begin shortly.
To strengthen the party organizationally, the delegates were proposed changes in the statute. The two most important ones authorize the superior bodies to dismiss heads of local organizations, replacing them with acting heads. Remarkably, this proposal was opposed by two delegates: People's Deputy Oleksandr Yeliashkevych and Borys Klunko of Dnipropetrovsk. Yuliya Tymoshenko, Prime Minister in Hromada's Shadow Government, hinted transparently at the danger of authoritarianism. However, all doubts were drowned in a chorus of general unanimity.
Pavlo Lazarenko broached another equally important subject, proposing a left-centrist opposition bloc which could unite Hromada with "tactical allies and situational partners," e.g., the Left, United Social Democrats, Yuri Buzduhan's Social Democrats, the Greens, and "nonaffiliated deputies, particularly those currently in the NDP faction." In his opinion, Social Democracy would be that bloc's consolidating ideology and nominating a single presidential candidate one of its major goals.
The convention lobby was shocked to read Pavlo Lazarenko's open letter to the noted Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn which, among other things, stated that Hromada was planning to propose to the Russian and Belarus leaders to form a volunteer Special Slavic Corps in the Crimea to ward off the threat from the south. When asked by journalists whether this proposal was "our reply to NATO," Mr. Lazarenko declined comment.
The Day'S COMMENTARY
Sources present at the Hromada convention report that no sensations actually occurred. As was expected, the convention's main task was to strengthen party discipline. As for declarations about uniting social democratic forces, they should not be taken seriously (meaning a sudden enthusiastic response resulting in an alliance of all left-centrist forces overnight). Of course, the main piquant point was Pavlo Lazarenko's letter to Solzhenitsyn. Frankly, it was first received as a practical joke. Of course, addressing letters to prominent personalities is an established image-making technique, but in this case the very idea expressed in this message is amazing. All such concepts dating from 1914 and the Lebensraum period are not only ridiculous but dangerous; we all remember where they led. Possibly, it is just a trick aimed at all those armchair politicos with an imperial train of thought. If so, Mr. Lazarenko's shot went wide of the electoral mark. Another possibility seems more likely. The man has learned to express correct and polite ideas in the domestic political realm (not without the aid from Kyiv experts), but his abortive foreign political debut is graphic evidence of what Mr. Lazarenko personally thinks about it, unaided by consultants.






