Will Udovenko Lead Rukh in Coming Elections?

“Despite recent reports by some media outlets, Hennady Udovenko has no intention of resigning as chairman of the People’s Movement (Rukh) of Ukraine (NRU), at least not in the immediate future. He will continue in his present office after the party’s XII Congress due to be held next May, since he has an almost unanimous backing of party members. As Rukh chairman, Mr. Udovenko will lead the party in the next parliamentary elections. Neither Viktor Pynzenyk (in case of the Rukh’s merger with the Reforms and Order Party), nor Oleksandr Lavrynovych are going to make a bid for the post,” said Chair of the NRU Oversight and Revision Commission, People’s Deputy Oleksandr Chornovolenko, last week in Zhytomyr in a brief interview with The Day’s correspondent.

In so doing, he de facto dismissed allegations made by another well-known Rukh lawmaker, Taras Chornovil, in a number of his recent interviews where he mentioned a possible replacement of the patriarch of Ukraine’s diplomacy (Udovenko was Foreign Minister both before and after perestroika) by either Pynzenyk or Lavrynovych. When asked by The Day what his attitude to such declarations by Mr. Chornovil was, Mr. Chornovolenko cautiously remarked that the former might have been misquoted.

As to the merger of Rukh and Reforms and Order, an issue widely debated for over two years now, it seems that some Rukh leaders are reluctant to step up the process. Rukh Central Committee’s Chief of Staff Andriy Nitsoi stated at a press conference in Zhytomyr that the merger of Rukh with Reforms and Order in one party will be justified politically only if there is a real chance of creating a broader election coalition with a number of other parties and organizations, in which a more powerful Rukh would play the leading role.