Rukh Movement Moves

Some prophets are known in this country, it seems. As predicted by Serhiy Koniev, currently in the NRU central office, the ballots of the coming parliamentary elections will have its own force, the People’s Rukh of Ukraine, launching the electoral bloc proclaimed on November 8 by Bohdan Boiko, Hryhory Filipchuk, and Eduard Krech, cochairmen of the People’s Rukh of Ukraine’s For Unity.

The bloc was proclaimed before a large audience of journalists, a fact that made Mr. Krech obviously happy; such media attention was evidence of increased interest in his party and its plans. Although it is more likely that media interest was caused by the assumption that the new electoral bloc could well break up Viktor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine. It is common knowledge that some of the NRU local organizations are still loath to put up with the Popular Movement merging into the obscure notion of Our Ukraine (which is also true of certain UNR party cells). Likewise, they are chagrined by their senior party figures in the center taking their time sharing room on the bloc’s roster with regional functionaries (according to Viktor Yushchenko, this roster allocates NRU a mere 10%) and in the majoritarian constituency ones. In other words, this challenge has long been maturing and now bears fruit. The whole thing waited to be triggered off by a political force trying to use it.

The NRU is likely to claim that political force’s status. Yet its founding fathers are very cautious discussing the possibility of any Udovenko people joining their camp at this stage. Yes, the bloc is open for dialogue and new members are expected to join by mid-December (mid-December, because this is the time of the first NRU and UNR conventions to decide on joining some electoral bloc or another). So far, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in Ukraine, the Third Millennium Club, a number of youth structures, and several regional organizations of the Ukrainian Republican Party have declared their readiness to join the newly created bloc. A deputy of the local Ukrainian Republican Party organizations also passed a message of no confidence in its leader Levko Lukyanenko who has “blemished his name” by becoming involved with Yuliya Tymoshenko and want to join not the Tymoshenko bloc (BYuT, nee National Salvation Forum), but NRU.

As for Our Ukraine, the new bloc’s founders do not see it as their rival, Bohdan Boiko magnanimously declared. Yes, they could compete for, say, a niche in the domestic political sector, yet NRU will be the farthest Right, he added.