Presidential Elections: Anything Can Happen

That a new election campaign kick-starts the day after the elections seems to be common knowledge in this country. However, this practice, normal for traditional democracies, still finds no adequate application here — and not because Ukrainian politicians are unaware of election technologies. The problem is different: a technology can only work in certain predetermined conditions. Even the most skilled cook will not make a tasty soup if he does not know the main ingredient, expecting that meat may be replaced by fish in the last minute.

So far, only one political force has semi-officially announced its candidate to run for presidency next year. Actually, no special announcements are required when it is about Our Ukraine. This bloc is virtually doomed to support its leader. It is impossible by definition for Viktor Yushchenko’s bloc to repeat the previous election scenario, when two Rukh candidates ran for president at the same time. It would look odd if the Yushchenko bloc nominated, say, Pynzenyk as presidential contender. Yet, there may be surprises here.

As to other likely candidates, I will dare predict the following picture: either no one else is going to lay claim to presidency in the nearest future or this claim will be simultaneously laid by a solid group of politicians, which does not matter either. Is it normal when the main political actors hide their trump cards until the last ditch? I don’t think so. No matter what powers the future president will wield in the light of the declared political reform, it would be better if voters could size up the real candidates in detail and without undue haste.

It is hardly worth making guesses or discussing specific personalities today. The situation really is that it is only Yushchenko and perhaps Symonenko who have no place to retreat. The former will not be allowed to do so even if he wanted to. On the one hand, this is an advantage for Our Ukraine’s leader: whatever you say, referring to Viktor Yushchenko as future president for several years on end gives him a clear edge over the other rivals. On the other hand, uncertainty about the rivals makes the pre-election start look like an unhappy love which takes at least two. There can be more, but not fewer, than this — otherwise it will be something other than generally-accepted love.

This can result in anything. What about the recent election of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine president? Serious people had been preparing this election for several years, spending the resources that might have been utilized for other purposes. But, right on the election day, the candidature of Viktor Yanukovych suddenly sprang up. Can we seriously speak of a presidential campaign if all that we know for sure is just the election date? But even this constitutional provision can be easily pushed aside by a required number of Verkhovna Rada votes. All that we can boldly claim is that the experience of the last presidential elections will be of no use. There will be an entirely different scenario, when the presidential racers will look like students taking an exam, with the assignment just pulled out from an unsealed envelope. The only difference is that the candidates will write their own assignment by themselves. They will be writing and rewriting it until the last day or even longer than that. The point is that the current head of state will also be taking part in the process.

So what will be the object of disputes? Although the current president is not going to run again, people will be voting in any case either for or against the existing system of government. But who knows today what attitude the majority of voters will take to the government twenty-two months later? For, whether one places a foolproof wager on the opposition or the government, the outcome will depend on grass-root support plus the proverbial “administrative resource” which will perhaps be given a more appropriate name by that time. We are still going to see more political somersaults, more die-hard oppositionists defecting to the government camp, and more pro-governmental politicians “coming to their senses” and choosing to fight the “regime.” But all this will occur later, when it will be clear at last what kind of president we will be electing in 2004. Until then, all one can do is make purposeless statements and guesses.