Preparations for the next elections, both parliamentary and presidential, commenced the very next day after the latest campaign, as they well should have.
I think that the esteemed parties and blocs made the appropriate analyses of the past elections and will not (or will try not to) repeat whatever mistakes they detected.
All this is quite proper, except that the party blocs promise to be somewhat different. It is safe to assume that the political situation within Ukraine has changed substantially. Rukh is not likely to act as a unifying force on the Right flank or in the Center. And the Center status is now held by the pro-presidential parties. Indeed, the picture looks like it should, considering the outcome of the 1999 campaign. The Left opposition remains the obvious adversary as predicted, except its image has changed for the worse. Most of the Right worked for Yevhen Marchuk, and we all know the result. Will the current Left opposition show its former unity and preparedness? Probably not, primarily because of its leadership. In fact, the Right has the same problem. Just as Rukh leaders never succeeded in getting beyond the concept worked out years ago on the premises of the Writers’ Union of the Ukrainian SSR, so the Red comrades cannot act other than under the Program of the CPSU. Meanwhile the world cannot remain at a standstill. Inter- and intraparty shifts and shuffles have allowed parties and leaders not exactly devoted to Ukrainian statehood to jump atop of the political Olympus. They formed a parliamentary majority (suppose we describe it as non-Left) and, in general, did their bit in forming what will possibly be the future alignment of political forces in Ukraine. Yet everything is not as simple as meets the eye. For example, they proposed Yuri Kostenko as Deputy Speaker and Hennady Udovenko’s entourage immediately turned green with jealousy. Now this is not big-time politics, just petty ambitions, as was the case with the 1998 parliamentary and 1999 presidential campaigns.
Such heartrending political events as elections either bring leaders to the top or hurl the down. Take the Left. Can Petro Symonenko, programmed as he was to lose the election (which even he did not bother to conceal), continue to claim CPU leadership? Or is there anyone to succeed him?
Or take Oleksandr Moroz. No one will try to prove that the Socialist leader emerged victorious from the last campaign. He lost quite a few points. As for Comrade Vitrenko, commentaries seem superfluous. Her conduct is perfectly stereotypical: keeping her nose to the political wind. The Peasants with their burned leader Tkachenko, sticking to their collective farm doctrine, are unlikely to come up with any new ideas.
As the “open” Right, the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (KUN) and Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) bear an old grudge (dating from 1940 —Ed. ), but can, when absolutely necessary, join in a bloc. Next on the list are Rukh-Udovenko, Rukh-Kostenko, the Ukrainian Republican Party, Reforms & Order, Christian National Union, Christian Democratic Union, and Republican Christian Party. There is an obvious opportunity for their cooperation. For example, the two Rukhs (those cooperating with these organizations, initiated within what was then a united Rukh, will be sure to succeed). The Christian-oriented parties, in my opinion, differ only in terms of differences between their leaders. A real Right bloc, however, seems totally unrealistic. While it has been pointed out previously that the Left is on a somewhat downward curve (one might describe the process as its leadership’s fiasco), in the Right camp the picture is different in a sense. Here, too, one finds specifics, although not as scandalous. True, their potentials are still to be realized, but they are big, no denying the fact.
Now consider the Center. Here three parties are the obvious leaders: United Social Democrats (SDPU{o}), Democratic Union (DS), and People’s Democratic Party (NDP). These parties kept by leaders who are currently well to do, meaning adequate financing and structures, which is the most important factor in any type of elections. While SDPU(o) and NDP wrote and directed the presidential campaign scenario, the then obscure DS guaranteed success with its promotional activity, primarily its leader’s lively propaganda, which brought the party to the fore in Ukraine’s political beau monde.
Finally, is there a possibility of the Right siding with the Center? Yes, there is, the more so that there are appropriate grounds. I see such a bloc relying on the same principles as Christian People’s Union, Christian Democratic Union, Social Democrats (disunited? —Ed. ), or Democratic Union, according to modern European traits except that SD and DS would have a tremendous amount of work to do, primarily laying their social foundations, rather than just hanging suspended from the branches of power. Likewise, the national patriots on the Right also have quite enough food for thought, for turning superfluous patriotism into a melodrama can at times be as damaging to the cause as the lack of it.
Genuine patriotism multiplied by real concern about the nation’s fate is the ground on which to build cooperation, unity, and further success.






