NEWS ANALYSIS: Ukraine's parliamentary elections and the prognosis for the future (05/03/98)

NEWS ANALYSIS

Ukraine's parliamentary elections and the prognosis for the future

by Taras Kuzio

Ukrainian voters went to the polls on March 29 with a bewildering range of choices that would be difficult to understand for a seasoned Western political scientist, never mind a Ukrainian voter. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) concluded that the legal framework was "extremely complex" because, in effect, four electoral systems were in effect (two systems, proportional and majoritarian, for candidates to the national Parliament; a majoritarian system to the Crimean Supreme Council and a majoritarian system for local elections). The OSCE and the PACE recommended that legislation be "consolidated" in the future.

The late passage of amendments to laws, or laws themselves, added to the confusion (e.g., candidates ran both on party lists and in majoritarian districts). This was the first election in Ukraine where voters were expected to act positively (that is, vote in favor of a candidate - not strike off all those one opposed).

Municipal elections in the cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol, which have all-republican status, did not go ahead because of controversy between the legislature and executive over the powers allotted to mayors in these two cities. Approximately 80,000 Tatars without Ukrainian citizenship were unable to vote, the majority of whom would have voted for Rukh. The new Crimean majoritarian election law also failed to provide quotas for national minorities (unlike in 1994).

A further and perhaps more important confusion rested upon the bewildering range of election blocs on the party list for elections to the Verkhovna Rada. Thirty election blocs competed for votes. Of those, only approximately a quarter were based upon established political parties rather than upon hastily convened blocs and interest lobbies for trade union, women's, regional and military interest groups.

The far left proved to be the most disciplined, while the democratic parties continued to be divided more by personalities than ideologies or platforms. The left included long-time allies from the Communists to the Socialists/Agrarians, who deliberately did not unite under one platform in order to attract as wide a spectrum of voters as possible.

The Progressive Socialists, who split from Oleksander Moroz's Socialists a number of years ago, are a "loose cannon" because they have remained supportive of roughly the same policies as the Communists and the Socialists/Agrarians, while condemning them for all manner of sins, including responsibility for Ukraine's economic crisis.

The Union (Soiuz) bloc, based upon the former Russia bloc in Crimea that came to power in 1994-1995, also took away votes from the Communists. With the collapse in support for Crimean separatism in 1995 and the requirement to re-register political parties from regional to national ones after the adoption of the Ukrainian Constitution in June 1996, the Russia bloc had transformed itself from a separatist lobby into a pan-Slavic one. Union's main campaign platform, therefore, called for Ukraine's membership in the Belarusian-Russian union.

It is strongly rumored that the presidential administration was behind the creation of splinter left-wing election blocs whose aim was to divide the left vote. To some degree this tactic was successful. The Progressive Socialists campaigned on television against the other two left-wing blocs and Hromada in an, at times, unholy alliance with the party of power. The Labor Ukraine bloc united under itself veterans, groups in an attempt to prevent the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU) from monopolizing this important voter constituency of pensioners. The All-Ukrainian Workers Party, created by the Federation of Trade Unions which has always maintained its Soviet-era cozy relationship with the authorities, also aimed to attract the vote of disgruntled workers.

The wild card undoubtedly was Hromada, the political party created by former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko. Ukrainian state television and the authorities harangued Hromada continuously in a media blitz that sought to link the party to the far left as a broad threat to Ukrainian democracy and statehood. To some degree this alliance of convenience is in the making because Mr. Lazarenko has little option but to search for allies among the left after being disowned by all democratic parties.

The other two noticeable anomalies in the election campaign were the campaigns by the Social Democratic Party (United) and the Greens. The SDPU benefited from high-profile linkage to Ukraine's most popular football team, Dynamo Kyiv, the entire squad of which joined the party in an election gesture. Unfortunately, Dynamo's thrashing by Juventus on March 18 lost it approximately 2 percent in votes. The SDPU may also have been damaged by having former President Leonid Kravchuk in its top five on the proportional lists, although Kravchuk loyalists reiterated that in the Kravchuk era, unlike today, there were no wage arrears. The success of the SDPU in getting through the 4 percent barrier was important also for former Prime Minister Yevhen Marchuk's presidential bid in October 1999.

The Greens launched a highly successful election campaign that brought them from nowhere into fourth place by focusing upon young and disgruntled voters. Their large vote, largely a protest vote, hid the fact that the party had largely been bought and taken over by businessmen, the majority of whom are from the energy sector, which is a major threat to the environment.

The election campaign

There was never any doubt that one thing would remain the same in the newly elected Parliament: namely, that the largest faction would be again the Communists. However, since early 1998 opinion polls had consistently underestimated the size of the vote for the CPU at only 12 to 15 percent. More than a third of voters had remained undecided right up until election day, and many of them had decided to vote for the left as a protest vote against the economic crisis - not as a vote in favor of communism. On election day a poll by Democratic Initiatives and SOCIS-Gallup gave results that more closely resembled the final results of the elections with the CPU in a clear lead.

The three key questions would be: would the CPU increase its numbers in the Verkhovna Rada from approximately 90 in 1994-1998; would the Socialist/Agrarian party bloc also increase its numbers; if both the Communists and the Socialists/Agrarians increased their representation would they, when combined, control more than 50 percent of the seats in the Verkhovna Rada? If so, Ukraine would be in for a period of instability, uncertainty and heightened conflict between the Verkhovna Rada and the executive branch.

The election results

The three main left-wing blocs obtained 24.68 (CPU), 8.59 (Socialists/Agrarians) and 4.05 percent (Progressive Socialists) giving them 37.32 percent of the 225 seats in Verkhovna Rada allocated to or by proportional votes. The democratic parties that made it through the 4 percent barrier were Rukh (9.42), the Greens (5.39), National Democratic Party (5.01), Hromada (4.71) and the SDPU (4.01), for a total of 28.54 percent.

Both the left and the democratic parties that made it past the 4 percent barrier will obtain additional votes when they are distributed to them from the election blocs that did not make it through the barrier.

There were few regional disparities in the election results. Rukh and national democrats obtained their main support in western Ukraine, while the CPU and the Socialists/Agrarians did well, respectively, in eastern and central Ukraine. In Dnipropetrovsk, Mr. Lazarenko's base, the CPU was pushed into second place by Hromada. Due to proportional voting, the CPU and Rukh did make inroads into areas where they were usually absent (Rukh in Crimea, where it was supported by the Tatars, and the CPU in the city of Kyiv).

Implications for the future

The new Parliament is unlikely to have a 50 percent majority by the left (let alone a constitutional two-thirds majority). Hence, it will not be dominated by the three main left-wing election blocs.
Whether the Verkhovna Rada will be more effective in pursuing reform will depend upon two factors: first, whether the left again dominates its top positions; second, the quality of the centrist and national democratic blocs and their ability to unite. The democratic forces are likely to be buttressed by the independents and entrepreneurs who comprised most of the candidates elected to the 225 seats elected on a majoritarian basis. The 1994-1998 Verkhovna Rada suffered from an amorphous and weak center that sometimes voted with the left and at other times with the right.
If the left again takes control of the top positions in the Parliament, conflict with the executive is inevitable. The CPU has openly called for the post of the president to be abolished, and for the National Bank of Ukraine and the Cabinet of Ministers to be brought under parliamentary control. At the same time, a less amorphous center in the Verkhovna Rada is likely to boost the reform process in Ukraine - although this still is likely to be evolutionary, not radical, in form.
President Kuchma, whose popularity has sunk to an all-time low of only 10 percent who look favorably at his accomplishments, has long threatened to dissolve the Verkhovna Rada and implement reform through a powerful executive, which is the norm in the CIS. This solution would be advantageous for economic reform, but it would weaken the democratic process.
The election blocs that backed President Kuchma (the National Democratic Party, dubbed the "party of power"), Mr. Marchuk (the SDPU) and Mr. Moroz (the CPU and the Socialist/Agrarian bloc) all made it through the 4 percent barrier. Thus, the conflict between the Verkhovna Rada and the executive will inevitably continue and it will be a major factor in the October 1999 presidential election campaign.

Taras Kuzio is a research fellow at the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Birmingham and editor of Ukraine Business Review.