ANALYSIS

A round-up of party congresses prepping for parliamentary elections

by Jan Maksymiuk
RFE/RL Poland, Belarus and Ukraine Report

A congress of the For a United Ukraine election bloc on January 12 approved its election manifesto and list of candidates for the March 31 parliamentary ballot, UNIAN reported. The first five individuals on the list include the bloc's leader and head of the presidential administration, Volodymyr Lytvyn; the head of the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Prime Minister Anatolii Kinakh; National Deputy Yekateryna Vaschuk; the general director of the Mariupol Illicha metallurgical plant, Volodymyr Boiko; and the rector of Taras Shevchenko National University, Viktor Skopenko.

The second five on the list are National Democratic Party Chairman and Transport Minister Valerii Pustovoitenko; Labor Ukraine Party Chairman Serhii Tyhypko; Party of Regions Chairman Volodymyr Semynozhenko; Agrarian Party leader Mykhailo Hladii; and the First Vice Minister of the Transport Ministry, Heorhii Kyrpa.

The list continues with National Deputy Andrii Derkach; famous sportsman Serhii Bubka; Yuris Company President Mykola Onishchuk; Presidential Adviser Anatolii Tolstoukhov; Ivan Zubets; Minister of Agricultural Policy Ivan Kyrylenko; National Deputy Oleksander Karpov; Industrial Policy Minister Vasyl Hureyev; Ivan Kuras, the director of the Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies; and National Deputy Ihor Sharov.

National Deputy Dmytro Tabachnyk is No. 21 on the list, and the president of the Professional Soccer League, Ravil Safiullin, is No. 22.

The congress also approved candidates in single-seat constituencies. The bloc's 225 candidates include Parliament Chairman Ivan Pliusch (Chernihiv Oblast); Presidential Adviser Leonid Kadaniuk (Chernivtsi Oblast); former Defense Minister Oleksander Kuzmuk (Mykolaiv Oblast); Parliament Vice-Chairman Stepan Havrysh (Kharkiv Oblast); First Vice-Chairman of the State Tax Administration Ihor Kalinichenko (Vinnytsia Oblast); and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea Valerii Horbatov (Crimea).

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A congress of the Socialist Party on January 12 approved its election manifesto and list of candidates for the March elections to the Verkhovna Rada, Interfax reported. The top five on the Socialist Party's election list include Socialist Party Chairman Oleksander Moroz; National Deputies Valentyna Semeniuk and Ivan Bokyi; the secretary of the party's political council and coordinator of the now-defunct anti-presidential movement Ukraine Without Kuchma, Yurii Lutsenko; and the editor-in-chief of the opposition newspaper Silski Visti, Ivan Spodarenko.

The list also includes Maj. Mykola Melnychenko, who currently resides in the United States, where he was granted political asylum, who is No. 15. In 2000, Mr. Melnychenko triggered the tape scandal by releasing what he said were records of conversations in the president's office, allegedly hinting at President Leonid Kuchma's complicity in the murder of opposition journalist Heorhii Gongadze and a host of other crimes.

Referring to a conversation with Mr. Melnychenko, Mr. Moroz told journalists that the former presidential bodyguard will take part in the election campaign on Ukrainian territory.

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A congress of the Natalia Vitrenko Bloc on January 12 approved its list of candidates for the parliamentary ballot, Interfax reported. The top five candidates on the list are activists of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine: Ms. Vitrenko, Volodymyr Marchenko, Liudmyla Bezuhla, Petro Romanchuk and Mykhailo Sydorchuk.

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A congress of the Women for the Future political association on January 12 approved its election list for the ballot, UNIAN reported. The top figures on the list are Valentyna Dovzhenko, the association's leader; Maria Orlyk, the head of the Union of Ukrainian Women; Iryna Belousova, vice-chairman of Women for the Future; Tetiana Selikhova, director of the Dynamo-Sileyer plant; and Andrii Ivanov, a member of the Women for the Future central board.

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A congress of the all-Ukrainian leftist union Justice on January 12 approved its election manifesto and list of candidates for the Rada elections. The party election list is headed by poet Mykola Lukiv, the editor-in-chief of the Dnipro magazine. The party's leader, Ivan Chyzh, will run in a one-seat constituency in the Khmelnytska Oblast.

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A congress of the Russian Bloc on January 10 approved its election manifesto and list of candidates for the March 31 ballot. The top five candidates are: Oleksandr Svystunov, the leader of the For a Single Rus Party and the Russian Movement of Ukraine; Ivan Symonenko, the leader of the Russian-Ukrainian Union Party; Oleh Liutikov and Ihor Pylayev, activists of the For a Single Rus' Party; and Svitlana Savchenko, the leader of the Union Party.

The Russian Bloc's election manifesto calls for the creation of "a single economic, informational and cultural area of Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus on the basis of a close interstate union," and for "the equality of the two state languages - Russian and Ukrainian," Interfax reported.

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The Central Election Commission has approved the distribution of funds for conducting the March 31 parliamentary election, Interfax reported on January 10. The 2002 budget provides for the allocation of 291.1 million hrv ($55 million) for the balloting.

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According to a recent poll conducted by the Oleksander Razumkov Center of Economic and Political Studies among Kyiv residents, only 19.8 percent of respondents believe that the March 31 parliamentary election will be more "democratic and transparent" than previous ballots in the 10 years of Ukraine's independence, Interfax reported on January 12.

Some 59.7 percent of respondents said "no" in answer to the question: "Do you think the upcoming parliamentary election will be held according to world standards - democratically, transparently and without pressure from the authorities?"

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According to a poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology on December 11-20 among 2,013 Ukrainian voters throughout the country, if parliamentary elections had been held at that time, the Our Ukraine bloc led by former Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko would have won 19.5 percent of the vote; the Communist Party, 17.6 percent; For a United Ukraine, 5.9 percent; Social Democratic Party (United), 4.2 percent; and Women for the Future, 4.1 percent.

Other parties and blocs that failed to achieve the 4 percent voting threshold included: the Green Party, 3.9 percent; the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, 3.2 percent; the Socialist Party of Ukraine, 3.1 percent; Yabluko, 2.9 percent; and the Natalia Vitrenko Bloc, 2.5 percent.

The poll's margin of error was 2 percent.

Jan Maksymiuk is the Belarus, Ukraine and Poland specialist on the staff of RFE/RL Newsline.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, January 20, 2002, No. 3, Vol. LXX

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