Oleksandr LAVRYNOVYCH: We began thinking about open politics eight years late

"Mr. Lavrynovych, what are the prospects for a court action about the legitimacy of your wing of Rukh?"

"The first stage of proceedings is over. We will appeal to the Supreme Court."

"Imagine the Supreme Court rules against you. What will you do?"

"The court ruling will not in the least affect our principles, views, program, and the rest."

"In other words, with due account of judicial prospects, you miss the presidential elections."

"I do not think a political party has the right to miss any kind of elections. On the other hand, if you are a good soccer player, you still don't try to beat the whole opposing team all by yourself. It is better to be part of a team with objectives and on conditions that suit you. I think our Rukh branch will do just this."

"What kind of team is this? You don't have a lot of choice in the Right Center. In case your candidate does not gather a million signatures, are you ready to negotiate and join forces with Udovenko's branch?"

"I hope we will gather the signatures. But what then? Then I think we should assume the role of a player who will participate in the team of a candidate who has a real chance. The price of these elections is very high. If we don't want to be a plaything in the hands of candidates who will have no obligations to our organization, we have to join a select team."

"The team seems so far to be forming without you. The Reforms and Order congress is being put forward as a Center-Right association, but you are not there."

"In formal terms, nothing extraordinary happened at that congress. The parties did not unite. One can speak only of Reforms and Order being reinforced by some NDP members, Liberals, and Democratic Party members. On the other hand, we now face a great problem: will our party compete for leadership in its own camp or will it choose further unification? In addition, a new problem has arisen: there are serious political figures so far remaining outside parties like, for example, Anatoly Matviyenko who formed the Open Politics Association.

"It is paradoxical that an organization with this name was being formed in Ukraine only in our ninth year of independence. If there is no openness and transparency in politics, what can one say about the state's prospects? If people still do not know what steps one political force or another is going to take, how can it propose solutions for one issue or another when it is senseless to talk about the transparency of state administrative structures? Today, the formation of an organization which proclaims and calls upon others to act openly seems something out of the ordinary, but political openness is an absolutely natural state of affairs for any civilized country."

"Does this mean that the formation of Open Politics is a recognition of the fact that politics have been closed up to now?

"Yes. Opaque and untrue. Some words are said from the rostrum, others written in a newspaper, others declaimed at party meetings, while still others are uttered behind closed doors and in conversation with official decision-makers."

"The tactical ideology of our parties has been, from their very inception, to get close to those with power in the hopes of influencing them. This behavior was couched in various excuses: from a threat to independence, as was the case of Rukh, to carrying out economic reforms, as with New Ukraine. As a result, as Mr. Filenko nicely put it, 'the party did not take power, but those in power took the party.' Rukh seems to have followed the footsteps of NDP."

"No."

"No?"

"The regime did not take Rukh. Rukh gave up by itself. Yet, I agree Rukh is also to blame for close politics. Participation in state structures is the main objective for a political party. This is the only reason why people create parties, to put into practice their societal philosophy through the state, but in this case it was complicity in some of the functions determined by the state, but not participation in making official decisions. Rukh has never been member of a ruling team; it played the role that the regime required of it in compliance Rukh ideology, for example, in the questions of national security."

"Can we say it took a staggering eight years to understand this fact? Or would this be too skeptical?"

"It is too optimistic an assessment."

"Party politics look like business. Both parties and businessmen offer certain goods. The former Soviet people who went into business understood immediately that the goods should be as transparent for the buyer as possible: they always stress that certain goods were produced by precisely this firm, they strive for a steady quality, etc. Why then do the same former Soviet people who took up politics refuse to understand elementary rules that lead to success?"

"I have already said that to sell the commodity called a political party people have to try it and tell the others that it's good or, on the contrary, bad, and next time they will vote for a different party. Without doubt Ukraine does not have one single party with clear and predictable policies. I think most party members are aware of the principles on which party activities are based. These activities do not yield immediate fruits, while life goes on right now... A dilemma arises: either to express oneself via the political structure as a whole, with all its political principles, or via small groupings in the middle of it, with concrete interests. Unfortunately, the latter path is easier."

"You are one of the authors of the law on presidential elections. Do you think it also conserves the closed character of politics? For instance, a million signatures only testify to two qualities of the candidate: either his close ties with the administration or his access to funds that allow him to rapidly form a structure to solve this specific problem. Are these the most important qualities for a future President? Besides, it is in fact unrealistic (judging by my own experience) to collect a million signatures over such a short time span. Now all candidates depend on the authorities, who can tell each of them that he/she collected the signatures wrongly, and this will almost always be the truth."

"In 1991, when I worked at the Central Electoral Commission during the presidential elections, registration of a candidate required 100,000 signatures. A situation cropped up then when not a single candidate might have been registered because of this limit. Just imagine: Ukraine's first free elections and not a single candidate! So the commission had to take urgent measures. Still, signatures reflect the organizational capabilities of parties that support a candidate. Although I myself am against signatures, we had to create a system to ward off the nomination of accidental or inadequate persons. Had it not been for the ill-considered position of the Communists, who preserved in the law the possibility of nomination by public assemblies and not only political parties, the situation would now be different: it would contribute to openness, forcing even the President to choose which political party to represent."