Regime Does its Best to Have No Democratic Parties, Believes Leader of Alleged Party of Power

Mr. Matviyenko told a news conference in Ivano-Frankivsk that his party has not determined which presidential candidate it will support and is still to decide on its attitude toward Zlahoda. The candidate will have to wait until the May convention and Zlahoda will have the People's Democratic Party's verdict - to either enter or ignore it - only after it makes public its action program and statute. Mr. Matviyenko pointed out that his party's Political Council has resolved to "join the process" - i.e., help Zlahoda mature and follow the path of democracy, for the whole business began thanks to administrative methods.

"We believe that volunteer organizations and political parties should unite in order that this has been an administrative structure from start to finish," the NDP leader said.

This tactic is based on what Mr. Matviyenko refers to as every effort being made to "destroy all democratic forces in this state," while stimulating splits among both the Left and the Right. He believes that what is happening to Ukrainian parties is not accidental. "Public political forces are for our oligarchs like light for a moth," he stressed. Everything is being done to weaken them, for otherwise "pursuing their oligarchic interests will be difficult and could become impossible."

A second contradiction now leading to the ruin of democratic structures, Mr. Matviyenko believes, is that in this country the choice has to be finally made of whether the regime creates parties or the parties create the government. "Those ruling Ukraine," he states, "think that they make all our political parties, but the parties by their very nature cannot accept such a view." The NDP leader believes that these problems should be placed in the limelight and that this would explain most of the problems within the parties rather than looking for interpersonal factors. "They exist, but they are not the main thing. The main thing is that our society does not seem to need strong political parties, and thus they are not offered."