ANALYSIS: Ukraine's political forces gear up for presidential elections (04/04/99)

ANALYSIS: Ukraine's political forces gear up for presidential elections

by Taras Kuzio

The October 31 presidential elections have led - and will continue - to lead to Ukraine's nascent political forces re-aligning themselves behind candidates. On March 22 President Leonid Kuchma signed the law on presidential elections, which he had vetoed only last month. Mr. Kuchma had protested that the law gave parties the exclusive right to nominate candidates. The Verkhovna Rada had itself then gone on to override his veto, forcing Mr. Kuchma to sign the bill into law.

The presidential campaign will begin on May 4 and the nomination of candidates will start 10 days after that date and last 30 days. Candidates can be proposed exclusively by political parties - the first time such a role has been given to them in Ukrainian presidential elections. To be a candidate nominees must be 35 years old, have resided in Ukraine for over 10 years and be able to collect the signatures of 1 million of Ukraine's 35 million voters.

A March 23 opinion poll by the International Institute of Sociology and the Center for Political Research and Conflict Studies gave President Kuchma the lead with 22.3 percent of the vote, a figure which has steadily risen since late 1998. Mr. Kuchma was closely followed by the populist demagogue Natalia Vitrenko, leader of the far-left Progressive Socialists, with 17.6 percent. Trailing behind them were the other two potential left-wing candidates: Oleksander Moroz, leader of the Socialists and former Parliament chairman (1994-1998) with 9 percent and the uncharasmatic Communist leader Petro Symonenko at 6.4 percent. The current Verkhovna Rada chairman, Oleksander Tkachenko, with his eyes set on becoming a Ukrainian version of Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, polled a paltry 1.9 percent.

Although President Kuchma appears to be firmly in the lead, an unusual feat in and of itself at the start of an election campaign in Eastern Europe, the combined left-wing vote (Vitrenko, Moroz, Symonenko, Tkachenko) is nearly 35 percent - a popularity level for the left that has remained remarkably stable in recent years.

If, as is expected (and Mr. Kuchma would seemingly prefer), the second round of the presidential elections repeats the 1996 Russian elections, President Kuchma would be pitted against a left-wing candidate (probably the more pragmatic Mr. Moroz). Although Messrs. Symonenko and Tkachenko would throw their weight behind Mr. Moroz, "wild card" candidate Ms. Vitrenko is unlikely to do so as her party split from Mr. Moroz's Socialists and is rumored to have some ties to the presidential administration. This, coupled with Mr. Moroz's links to the now disgraced former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, who is seeking asylum in the U.S., would in all likelihood considerably reduce Mr. Moroz's chances of winning the elections.

That Mr. Kuchma is the only serious pro-reform, anti-left candidate can be seen from the same poll. His two pro-reform opponents, Hennadii Udovenko, former foreign affairs minister and ally of Rukh; and Yevhen Marchuk, former prime minister and leader of one of Ukraine's four social democratic parties; polled only 3 and 2.9 percent, respectively. In the second round Mr. Udovenko would be likely to back President Kuchma, while Mr. Marchuk would support Mr. Moroz or President Kuchma in exchange for the post of prime minister.

The elections are still seven months away, and Mr. Marchuk could still play a role similar to that played by Aleksandr Lebed's "third force" in the 1996 Russian elections, whereby he would seek to attract disgruntled voters unwilling to back either of the two traditional elite groups of the right and left, Messrs. Kuchma or Moroz. Mr. Marchuk, like Mr. Lebed in Russia in 1996, therefore, could hold the balance of power after the first round of the elections.

Political parties seeking to take part in the election campaign are divided below into two principal groups, left and right, with a number of additional sub-groups.

Reformist Right

Leonid Kuchma: The right, reformist camp is perhaps not surprisingly dominated by the incumbent, President Kuchma. He has portrayed himself as the only candidate able to take on the left, who he claims are a threat not only to the reform process but also to Ukraine's statehood. (Ironically Mr. Kuchma was himself accused of being a threat to statehood by Mr. Kravchuk in the 1994 elections.)

The main vehicle to promote Mr. Kuchma's re-election is the Zlahoda (Concord) election bloc, which held its inaugural congress on March 19-20 and was addressed by both Mr. Kuchma and Prime Minister Valerii Pustovoitenko.

The old guard are aligning themselves with Mr. Kuchma in the face of the perceived left-wing threat. Ukraine's first president, Mr. Kravchuk (and Mr. Kuchma's bitter opponent in the summer 1994 elections), together with Ivan Pliushch, the Rada chairman under President Kravchuk, are co-chairs together with Mr. Pustovoitenko of Zlahoda.

The Kuchma staff has studied the reasons for the failure of Mr. Kravchuk in the 1994 elections and his campaign operates through his prime minister (who was the head of his campaign staff in 1994), the shadowy Coordinating Council for Domestic Policy, headed by Oleksander Volkov, and the presidential administration, which controls the regional officials and is headed by Mykola Biloblotskyi.

Mr. Kuchma has successfully co-opted three of the four reformist factions in the Rada: the National Democratic Party, the Greens and the United Social Democrats.

Because the United Social Democrats were co-opted by Mr. Kuchma, the leader of the faction, Mr. Marchuk, had to hurriedly create his own Social Democratic Union in January.

The Liberals, long the party of power in the Donbas, are also backing Mr. Kuchma (just as they backed the incumbent in 1994), together with the pro-reform Agrarians and the Party of Regional Rebirth, which aims to attract voters in eastern Ukraine and has a strong presence in the Donbas.
Yevhen Marchuk: His campaign has suffered from two factors. First, there is the image problem due to his links to the KGB in a country still harboring great suspicion of anybody with links to that organization. Second, his allies among the Liberals and the United Social Democrats both deserted him for the Kuchma camp. Therefore, he had to create his own Social Democratic Union overnight to serve as his election vehicle.

Mr. Marchuk's only chance is to attract disgruntled voters as a "quiet, third force" lying between the two main left and right candidates (Messrs. Moroz and Kuchma, respectively). Therefore, has made overtures to center-right and far-right parties, (the Republicans and smaller nationalist parties) who would never vote for the left and remain suspicious of Mr. Kuchma's pragmatic centrism. As the "third force," Mr. Marchuk hopes to attract these disgruntled nationalist voters in the west and social democrats in the east and south.
Hennadii Udovenko: this is the weakest candidate of the reformist right. In February Rukh split in two, largely over generational and policy lines. Only one wing, led until his fatal car accident by Vyacheslav Chornovil, supported Mr. Udovenko. After the death of Mr. Chornovil both wings of Rukh may decide to patch up their differences and re-unite.

In the first round Rukh support would be divided between Messrs. Udovenko and Marchuk, while in the second round Rukh members would vote for Mr. Kuchma only to keep Mr. Moroz out (in the same manner as they voted for Mr. Kravchuk in 1994 in the hope of keeping Mr. Kuchma out).

Anti-reform left

The hopefuls: the Communist (Symonenko), Progressive Socialist (Vitrenko) and Peasant parties (Tkachenko) are all likely to put up their own candidates in the first round, because talks to support a candidate from a united left have floundered.

The aim of Mr. Tkachenko's split from his 1998 election allies, the Socialists, was to capture the post of Rada chairman for himself and thereby promote his presidential ambitions as Ukraine's Lukashenka. None of the three candidates, however, has sufficient popularity and/or a moderate image to be electable.

Mr. Moroz is the strongest candidate of the left because he has a high profile from his term as Rada chairman (1994-1998). He has also successfully created the image of a moderate left-center politician who is pro-statehood and neither anti-Western nor excessively pro-Russian. The image he is attempting to cultivate is that of other post-Communist leaders in Central-Eastern Europe.

Mr. Moroz's problems stem from the fact that Ukraine is not Poland or the Baltic states, and his Socialist Party possesses only a quarter of the members that the unreconstructed Communists possess. Therefore, he is unsure whether he should represent the left or the entire anti-Kuchma opposition. Only the latter would guarantee him a potential victory but would then pit him against many rivals.

Mr. Moroz's dubious financial links to Mr. Lazarenko and the Hromada Party have also been used by the Kuchma team in an attempt to discredit him. The major aim of the campaign against Mr. Lazarenko was less to expose corruption, as many of these practices still continue, than to deny financial support to Mr. Moroz.

Dr. Taras Kuzio is honorary research fellow at the Ukraine Center of the University of North London.

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