“Party of power 2015”

The media have reported this week on the final merger of the parties UDAR and Petro Poroshenko Bloc (PPB) into an entity named UDAR-Solidarity. PPB Member of Parliament Serhii Alekseiev, who has confirmed this information to The Day, says a congress will be held on August 27 to thrash out all the merger conditions. The new political party will be led by Vitali Klitschko who has signed a series of merger agreements with Petro Poroshenko. The party’s political board and presidium are also to be changed.

This is not a new political alliance – it began in March 2014, when an UDAR’s congress supported Poroshenko as a joint presidential candidate, while Klitschko announced the intention to run for the office of Kyiv’s mayor. What remains rather unclear behind the veil of agreements is the role of the oligarch Dmytro Firtash. Yet, as is known, the alliance was forged on the basis of a 50 to 50 ratio in the future election lists. But this ratio changed to 70 to 30 in favor of the PPB in the parliamentary elections. And the deputy faction leader Ihor Kononenko said recently the two parties would contest the local elections together again in the same ratio.

Besides, the press reports that, against the backdrop of a plummeting electoral support (about 3 percent according to the Rating poll service), the party Popular Front has also made a deal with the PPB to run together for local council seats. According to Lb.ua, the ratio of the future alliance is 75 to 25 in favor of the PPB.

Maksym ROZUMNY, Doctor of Political Science, former head of the political strategies section at the National Institute for Strategic Studies, comments to The Day on the causes, effects, and prospects of these alliances:

“The Petro Poroshenko Bloc and UDAR may have exchanged their ratings. We have already seen similar merger projects – in the realities of Ukraine it is called ‘party of power,’ such as NDP, SDPU(o), and the Party of Regions.

“In my view, the UDAR project was at the stage of being wound up and sold. In all probability, it had no prospects, and Klitschko understood that he would hardly be a national-scale politician, for it is not his calling. In addition, there have been some unclear developments lately around Yurii Lutsenko (he filed his resignation as faction leader) and it was reported that he was drawing up an alternative political project of his own. Therefore, Klitschko will be a nominal leader because the Petro Poroshenko Bloc desperately needs a public person. And the president’s men are most likely to take care of the party machine.

“As for the former UDAR members, who had defected to the president’s team before, a reconciliation between them and Klitschko is possible if the latter accepts the role of a formal leader and does not try to form the party structure to his liking. All these people – Kovalchuk and Pavlenko, who work now at the Presidential Administration, and Iryna Herashchenko – came from UDAR, but they were not Klitschko’s personal quota because the party was a ‘joint-stock company.’ It is possible that this job-placement was the initiative of Poroshenko who brought his people to parliament on this party’s lists.

“As for the Popular Front, its likely contest of the elections together with the PPB and UDAR is the result of its fallen rating. The PF is also a ‘joint-stock company’ that has gone bankrupt now. It is likely to break into its original, albeit modified, component parts. The part that now forms Premier Yatseniuk’s team will tend to get into an alliance in the elections. But it is not ruled out that this team will include totally different groups and have different preferences. Besides, new situational alliances may come up at the local level.

“A joint quest for elections is a way out for Arsenii Yatseniuk – this will help him stay on in politics and in power so that no question is raised after the elections about the resignation of the government head who leads the party that has lost the elections. It seems to be no accident that the president is bailing out Yatseniuk as prime minister and invites him to the joint party of power, even giving him a part of his rating. In all probability, Poroshenko will obtain more essential instruments of influencing the Cabinet.

“Yatseniuk has always been an ambitious politician, but he has never been one with his own vision, for he has been executing political orders. It is common knowledge that the US supports him, a thing that can allow one to stay on in Ukrainian politics for a certain time. But he is a political player, not a political leader, as are all his still active followers. Their merger was a small episode in a personal political career and in Ukrainian politics. Naturally, while, for example, Avakov has had a stronger position as minister of the interior in partnership with Yatseniuk, he is going to see it reduced now, whereas the president will boost his clout. But I would not speak of a serious crisis.

“Nobody knows what will happen next – early parliamentary elections or a long period of political lull before regular elections. The behavior of influential politicians and their identification with certain party projects will depend on the further course of event.”