Time to Come in From the Streets
Those working at opposition camps and media outlets must have found it hard to cover the March 9 rally, for there was not much to report. Everything seen and heard echoed the previous rallies. In the absence of new information, one could for a change admire the elegant clothes of the opposition leaders, discuss the color and cut of Viktor Yushchenko’s topcoat or Yuliya Tymoshenko’s hairstyle. However, let us leave this to professionals from glossy magazines. To adequately assess the opposition March 9 rally in the capital and regions we need to go back twenty years.
In those days energetic Komsomol (Communist Youth League) leaders were able organizers of rallies and demonstrations, vigils, and even protests. And the fact that all of these had no bearing on real life was of interest to nobody. The Communists knew what they were doing: an ably organized mass undertaking promoted the careers of its organizers and made it possible to simulate feverish activity. By all accounts, nobody was interested whether the commitments thus undertaken were fulfilled or not. It was important just to stay on the front lines.
This came to mind when Anatoly Matviyenko read out the resolution of the opposition rally in Kyiv. Who else if not him, former leader of the Ukrainian Komsomol, should be able to convincingly read any document completely without giving thought to its substance? Who else if not him, a former oblast state administration head, should know the true worth of all these resolutions compared to real power? And it was power the protesters seemed to be talking about, or at least the resolution implied it. In reality, what they talked about adds up to nothing. Unfortunately, the much advertised protest of the opposition forces yet again yielded no real result. Why ‘unfortunately,’ and what kind of definitive result should they have achieved?
It has been a while since the leftists learned to rub shoulders with the rightists at rallies, carry red and blue-and-yellow banners alike, burst into applause when listening to harangues of their chieftains and chant “Down with Kuchma!” The novelty has worn off. What used to be unusual has become routine. This resembles a situation when a new teacher at school makes boys sit next to girls during classes. What next? Should we feel overjoyed to have seen Yushchenko rub shoulders with Tymoshenko, Moroz, and Symonenko?
March 9 would have made a difference and perhaps could have made a mark on history, had the opposition quarter standing at the foot of the monument to Taras Shevchenko put forward their single candidate for president. This would certainly make a difference in Ukraine and elsewhere. Let us face it: none of the opposition four, except Yushchenko, can vie for the president’s post. Then why don’t they unite here and now against the regime they hate? Why don’t they start a joint offensive? Then the demand for early presidential elections would not sound like hackneyed rhetoric. Instead, after parading through the streets and saying the right cues, each went his way to his own opposition camp to negotiate unification.
The record of Ukrainian democracy is not very long, but long enough to predict the impossibility of any real and not merely declarative unification of the opposition four behind a single candidate for president. The motives of the single candidate himself are quite understandable. He has no reason to hurry. The other three cannot achieve anything without him. Who could Moroz or Tymoshenko support other than Yushchenko to spite him? Another candidate could be found, but what for? If the candidate is nominated from the opposition, he will not measure up to Yushchenko. To put forward a pro- government candidate would be a way to political suicide for Tymoshenko and Moroz alike. The latter is in the worst position of all. The Socialist Party leader would have no choice but to seek a more or less decent end to his inordinately ambitious career. Of course, he can always count on political asylum. Is it easy for a two-time candidate for president to mingle with the nation’s hopefuls when he must remain on the lookout not to get trampled by the young and the enterprising?
One could not help but to feel pity for the efforts wasted by the organizers of the March 9 rally. When certain deputies were covering the walls of the Lukyanivka pretrial detention center with graffiti, it became clear that the organizers did not expect their rally to end like this. They became like the brat who painted a naughty word on the fence, thinking he was being cool.
After a more than modest result of the opposition’s spring offensive the conflict within the opposition will most likely deepen. This does not mean that energetic politicians of the second echelon will stop short of making statements, putting forth resolutions, and organizing protests. We have mentioned the lessons of the Komsomol when political figures of such scale attempted to get a more prominent post. As for the opposition leaders, they, having received new food for thought, will resume their unending talks about uniting and probably will refrain from taking to the streets in the immediate future .
