Says Oleksandr Moroz

Socialist leader and presidential candidate Oleksandr Moroz said he is confident that after the Kaniv Four agree on a single nominee a number of other candidates will join them, reports Interfax Ukraine.

He further declared that, should there appear representatives of the real forces counting on victory in the presidential race, the Kaniv Four would turn into a center of gravity attracting other candidates without a real chance to win; a candidate representing a certain party and losing the campaign with a broad margin would damage that party's reputation in the next parliamentary elections.

In his own words, Mr. Moroz consciously joined the Kaniv Four, because he wanted Leonid Kuchma's election team to see that their democratic-president-or-Red-threat pattern will not work. Queried by journalists, he said that the Kaniv Four would be created anyway, even if between only two candidates. “If I reached an understanding with Yevhen Marchuk, Volodymyr Oliynyk would automatically join us. If we came to terms with Oleksandr Tkachenko, Yevhen Marchuk would also be involved in the process.” He also said that in determining a single candidate the Kaniv Four will, among other things, consider a given candidate's popularity ratings (although this is not the decisive criterion — Ed.

). As for the single candidate's program, based on the signatories' joint program, it will have no substantial changes. Earlier the Kaniv Four announced that they would develop a joint program after putting forth a single candidate.

When visiting Kharkiv, Oleksandr Moroz also commented on the President's recent steps, noting in particular that Leonid Kuchma's intention to get reelected poses a “severe and terrible” threat to democracy. The SPU leader reminded once that the President wants to set up a bicameral legislature after being reelected. A bicameral Verkhovna Rada could materialize only after reelections, meaning that the current Parliament would be disbanded. Mr. Moroz also considers that a number of pro-presidential factions voicing the need to set up a reconciliation council to run Parliament on a collegial basis are nonsensical from the legal point of view — but this is just talk.

While in Sumy, Oleksandr Moroz declared that, should Leonid Kuchma win the campaign in the presence of serious violations of the law, the result could be contested in court. He also stressed that, should the Central Election Committee register Leonid Kuchma as President elect, Verkhovna Rada would never agree to his inauguration, considering election law violation claims being handled in court, adding that Leonid Kuchma's election headquarters are working according to a pattern of announcing the turnout invalid if the acting President fails to collect the required number of votes to get into the second round. “Leonid Kuchma should not count on commanding the courts it comes to that,” Mr. Moroz declared, “for as soon as he fails in the first round he will see that no one is taking any orders from him any longer.”