What will be the main features of the parliamentary election campaign?

Oleksandr DERHACHOV, editor-in-chief, Political Thought:

Ukraine is quickly advancing on its way toward obtaining its own electoral experience. At the same time, the electoral strategies and technologies will mature. The next elections will be held under a more rigid control of the executive power than in 1998. This will be connected with a purposeful and very well considered usage of the administrative resource, which is to guarantee not just the required majority but the majority convenient exactly for the current condition of the authorities. In this connection the existing set of financial and political powers in the current parliament, which has already tested itself in the majority and then tried to take the government under its control, has no guarantee of benevolence from the Presidential Administration. Only a part — perhaps a major part — of this grouping can be seen as a quite convenient structure for the president. Thus, not everybody will get access to the administrative resource.

Simultaneously, it is obvious that there are no preconditions in Ukraine for forming a parliamentary scheme similar to the Russian model, and there will be no Ukrainian analogy to Russia’s Yedinstvo [Unity] Party, which appeared spontaneously as a party of power. Perhaps, two or three blocs will be formed, which will be used by the regime and use the administrative resource. We all are witness to the formation of these blocs: Pustovoitenko’s project, Pliushch’s project. It is still possible that the initiative will be taken from them, and it is hard to speak about the combinations which will become possible then. When it comes to forming party lists, the contradictions will be seriously aggravated.

The Communists are still rather popular, and the work will be conducted to make them a controllable opposition absorbing the major mass of the protest electorate. Both Rukhs and Reforms and Order will be placed in a position where they will not be a tough opposition and will have to tone down their criticism. Perhaps some kind of coalition will be created with their participation for Yushchenko, who will also be used to stabilize the regime and shorten the number of irreconcilable members of the opposition.

Finally, in my opinion, we will have a controllable parliament with restricted political functions. And with its help the constitutional reform will be conducted, fixing this position.

Mykhailo POHREBYNSKY, director, Kyiv Center for Political Research and Conflict Studies:

It is hard to make predictions now, as the major political conflicting forces in this competition have not yet been outlined. This time much will depend on how the various forces will approach the elections. Then the ideology of the election struggle itself could change dramatically. Will there be a single Right bloc? Will Yushchenko head it? Will there be any blocs in the Center? If so, how exactly will they be formed? The only thing more or less understood is the situation with the Left, where Communists, Vitrenko, and Moroz will run for election individually. Each of them has some chance, and the struggle will be hard. Each of them has his/her own slogans, all of them in opposition, of course, but having different grades of opposition character. The Communists will have a slogan of Without Kuchma and Yushchenko, Moroz — Without Kuchma. The Right will bear slogans against the corrupt power and oligarchs. The opposition lines will lay between those who want today to change everything drastically without putting forth any constructive proposals. There will be a Left and a Right. On the other hand, there will be struggle within the Center, where perhaps a new construction or new rudiments of the future party of the regime and opposition party will be formed. To all appearances, it will be two or three blocs able to compete for existence close to the regime, and others fighting for an opportunity to take power next time. Some competition could arise among them, similar to the competition in the democratic European world where there are Conservatives and Liberals. However, right now this process is at a rudimentary stage.

Mykola TOMENKO, director, Institute of Politics:

The approaching elections are unique in the sense that a number of additional lines of conflict have appeared. The traditional line of the conflict, the ideological one — the opposition of the left-wing procommunist political forces and national democratic forces — will be minimized so long as ideological parties of Left or Right orientation work to mobilize their ideologically determined adherents. Yet the main struggle. strange it may seem, will rage in the Center between electoral blocks and political parties. They will pretend to be the legitimate representatives of the party of power or the regime in general. The appearance of the oligarchic block of the parties of power and the administrative block of them can be predicted; moreover, it cannot be excluded that a party list headed by Prime Minister Anatoly Kinakh could appear. A situation could arise when the political parties which have formed the government and have been working with the president will be divided into three groups, and objectively they will compete each other for using the administrative resource, financial opportunities, the information resource, and even if they don’t actively resist each other officially, in reality they will be a quite serious opposition, and the struggle between them will be quite serious. This is the first difference between this election and the previous one. The second special feature is the fact that electoral blocks, not political parties, will be dominant. To a great extent, it will be an opposition between electoral blocks. The third is the fact that for the first time the struggle will be for the leading role not for the Communists but for some other political force. The fourth feature of this election is that negative or dirty political technologies will be prevalent. The absolute majority of the political forces will not so much propagate their own political ideas as try to lessen the strength of their political competitors on the electoral field. The last feature is the fact that objectively this elections will be the most expensive one. Not everyone will get a place on party lists, which means a considerable portion of the candidates are doomed to go to majority districts. The competition in the majority districts among very important persons will attract large financial resources.