Presidential opponents convene in Kaniv (08/29/99)

Presidential opponents convene in Kaniv

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Verkhovna Rada Chairman Oleksander Tkachenko, Ukraine's legislator-in-chief and a presidential wannabee, showed that presidential pre-election politics should take precedent over official independence day festivities when he decided to hold his own August 24 commemoration at the burial spot of Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine's most revered national hero.

The head legislator was a no-show at the official Independence Day Parade on the capital city's main thoroughfare, the Khreshchatyk, and forsook the traditional spot for the head of the Verkhovna Rada on the reviewing stand next to President Leonid Kuchma, now his chief political rival in the upcoming presidential elections. Second Vice Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Viktor Medvedchuk, was the only representative of the Parliament's leadership present for the parade. Along with Mr. Tkachenko, First Vice Chairman Adam Martyniuk, who is a member of the Communist Party, also failed to appear.

Instead, Mr. Tkachenko celebrated Ukraine's eighth anniversary of independence with three other presidential hopefuls in Kaniv, a city located south of Kyiv on the shores of the Dnipro river, where the group announced that they had agreed to joint actions in the presidential race and would eventually unite around a single candidate from among them.

Socialist Party candidate Oleksander Moroz, Yevhen Marchuk, who was nominated by a coalition of extreme right organizations, but has increasingly been reconnecting with his leftist base, and Volodymyr Oliynyk, head of the Association of Ukrainian Mayors and nominated by voters of the city of Cherkasy of which he is mayor, joined Mr. Tkachenko on Tarasivska Hora for the announcement.

"We know that in answer to this deliberated step, a majority of votes will be cast for one of us in the first round ... and that no second round will be needed," reads a part of the statement released by the four. The documents also states that "the black hand of dictatorship is being raised over Ukraine," and that Ukraine's citizenry must not simply choose a president but a savior of the country. It says that if the current president remains in office "the country will be ruined and sovereignty lost."

The four candidates who some pundits have already dubbed the Kaniv-4, agreed that they would be able to decide which one would represent them by mid-October. Mr. Marchuk suggested that the sea change of voter support for the new grouping after the announcement would be such that they could begin informal discussions on the structure of the new government even before the elections.

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