Campaign season for the October 28 Ukrainian parliamentary elections officially kicked off this week. The contest is a key moment for Ukraine and the Viktor Yanukovych administration, as it is the first major election of Yanukovych’s presidency and will measure just how much popular discontent over his and the ruling Party of Regions’ rule has grown.
Opposition forces in Ukraine have been notoriously weak and scattered. However, a sharp drop in support for the authorities may translate into more votes for the opposition – particularly, for the Fatherland party, headed by Ukraine’s two most visible opposition politicians: imprisoned former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and former Economy and Foreign Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
RIA Novosti presents a quick guide to parties and politics in Ukraine’s parliament, or Verkhovna Rada.
Political Parties
The Party of Regions (SGR*: 22 percent, Razumkov*: 21.4 percent)
The Party of Regions has held a parliamentary majority since the 2007 parliamentary election. It was created in 1997 to represent the interests of Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the south and east of the country. The party and its then-presidential candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, emerged as the losers of the 2004 Orange Revolution that swept the pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko to power. Yet after five years of stalled reforms and broken promises, the Party of Regions crept back to national prominence, having capitalized on public discontent with the Yushchenko administration. Today, despite a precipitous drop in ratings since Yanukovych’s election, the party remains the country’s most powerful single political force, and has emerged as a vehicle for the oligarchic business interests invested in the Yanukovych regime. It employs a populist approach, while also attempting to appeal to its blue-collar, working-class support base.
Fatherland (SGR: 25.6 percent; Razumkov: 20.2 percent)
Fatherland brings together the two of the more visible opposition figures in Ukraine today. The party, which currently anchors the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT) faction in parliament, is Tymoshenko’s flagship party and has a long history in the opposition. Meanwhile, Front for Change, a new and much smaller party led by Yatsenyuk, plans to blend into Fatherland and bypass a new law preventing political alliances, or “blocs,” from competing as joint forces. Yatsenyuk announced the cooperation agreement earlier this year as part of an effort to build a unified opposition to the Party of Regions and the Yanukovych administration. Fatherland advocates a pro-European platform, and has seen a small yet steady growth in public support alongside the Party of Regions’ drop.
The Communist Party of Ukraine (SGR: 7.6 percent; Razumkov: 6.1 percent)
As with many other post-Soviet countries, the Communist Party remains a relative mainstay on the Ukrainian political scene. While just passing the 5-percent threshold, the Communists have retained a visible presence in Ukrainian socio-political life, fielding outspoken and colorful individuals, such as firebrand Petro Symonenko, and publicly defending Kiev’s most famous Vladimir Lenin statue from nationalist attackers. As expected, the party enjoys the most support from retirees, but virtually none from younger voters and the first post-Soviet generation. It espouses a Marxist-Leninist ideology, though it has been known to work with the Party of Regions on key legislation and to collect votes otherwise intended for the ruling party.
Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR) (SGR: 9.2 percent; Razumkov: 8.3)
Among the newest Ukrainian political parties, UDAR (Russian for “punch”) was founded in April 2010 and is led by boxing champion-cum-politician Vitaliy Klitschko. Based on an earlier political coalition built around Klitschko’s 2006 political debut, in which he lost the Kiev mayoral election but gained 14 seats in the city council, UDAR has been slowly collecting political capital. In the 2010 local elections, it won about 400 seats on local and regional councils throughout Ukraine. Compared to its competitors, UDAR has enjoyed the most pre-election buzz: its support level has soared in recent months, and it seems set to collect seats in parliament. Experts have labeled it a political “dark horse,” noting it is unclear whether it would work with the ruling party or join the opposition. Its supports a platform of pro-Europeanism and anti-corruption.
All-Ukrainian Union “Freedom” (SGR: 4.4 percent; Razumkov: 3 percent)
Ukraine’s token nationalist party, Freedom (or “Svoboda”) has crept slowly onto the national stage in recent years. Its main bastion of support lies in western Ukraine, where nationalist, pro-Ukrainian sentiment runs high and memories of Russian rule, whether Soviet or otherwise, remain deeply bitter. It has been a target of criticism in recent years for espousing ethnic intolerance and celebrating controversial heroes such as Stepan Bandera, the insurgent leader of a World War II-era independence movement but who is regarded in pro-Russian Ukraine and Russia as a terrorist. The party has also been accused of being funded and organized by the Party of Regions to funnel votes toward the ruling party from skeptical and frightened voters.
Bloc Party
Currently, the Verkhovna Rada is divided into factions, formed either by single parties or coalitions made up of several different parties. Factions in Ukraine have traditionally been fluid, with political allegiances shifting often.
The current session of parliament includes the following factions: the Party of Regions (194 seats), the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc-Fatherland (99 seats), the Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense Bloc (62 seats), the Communist Party (25 seats), the People’s Party (20 seats), Reforms for the Future (19 seats), and independent lawmakers (30 seats).
While the ruling Party of Regions holds only a relative majority, it enjoys a de facto majority in parliament by scraping together votes from other factions. Its goal is, and has been, to muster a 300-vote constitutional majority.
Traditionally, Ukrainian parties have competed in electoral “blocs” – or political alliances that pool together electoral support and compete during elections as single forces. However, a November 2011 law, sailed through parliament by the Party of Regions, changes the game considerably in a move critics say is meant to split the opposition. It stipulates that parties can no longer band together and compete as blocs in parliamentary elections – an especially damning rule in a country where the political opposition is already fragile and musters its political capital through coalitions.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe criticized the electoral change, charging in a June report that it “seriously undermine[s] confidence in the electoral process” and “determine[s] the context of the elections.” Similarly, a recent Freedom House report expressed serious concerns about a crooked political playing field, as well as the authorities’ inclination to use administrative resources to their advantage.
Once in parliament, it is possible that the main opposition faction, Fatherland, will form parliamentary alliances with other factions, such as the nationalist Freedom party (should it win seats), and even Klitschko’s UDAR, to counter the Party of Regions’ influence. Many experts remain skeptical, however, about whether the opposition can stick together, noting also that the ruling party will attempt to court votes from other parties in parliament to maintain its own powerful faction.
Given Tymoshenko’s imprisonment, it is likely that she will remain the ceremonial face of the opposition, while Yatsenyuk will emerge as the political leader of any united opposition forces.
*Pre-election projections from a May survey by the Ukrainian independent pollster Sociological Group “Rating,” as well as July figures from the Kiev-based Razumkov Center non-governmental think tank. 2,000 people participated in each survey. The margin of error for the first survey is 2.2 percent, while for the second poll it is not specified.
** To enter parliament, a party needs to pass the 5-percent threshold.
