ANALYSIS: Greens, oligarchs and elections (03/17/02)

ANALYSIS

Greens, oligarchs and elections

by Taras Kuzio
RFE/RL Newsline

Of Ukraine's 130 registered parties, seven claim to be "green." These include the All-Ukrainian Chornobyl People's Party (registered in October 1998), the Green Ecological Party (February 2001), the Green Party of Ukraine, the Ecological Party, the Ecological Party Defense (all in March 2001) and the Green Party - 21st Century (April 2001).

Six of Ukraine's seven green parties have little influence in comparison to the oldest, the Party of Greens of Ukraine (PZU), which was registered far ahead of the others on May 24, 1991. Until its electoral success in 1998, the ZPU faced little competition from other greens, but another five green parties were registered between the winter of 2000 and the spring of 2001.

The greens underwent a similar process that took place within other Ukrainian political parties. In 1994-1998, some centrist and national democratic parties were gradually taken over by oligarchs who needed to convert their newly found economic clout back into political influence. After the PZU and the National Democratic Party (NDP) were taken over by them, those members of both parties who stayed loyal to their original pre-oligarch ideology left to create other parties or join existing ones. Those non-oligarchic parties have joined the Our Ukraine or Yulia Tymoshenko blocs, while the PZU and NDP support the oligarchs and Kuchma.

Of the 34 parties and blocs originally registered for the election campaign, only two are green, and both are supported by competing oligarchs. The Raiduha (Rainbow) election bloc included the Ecological Party of Ukraine Defense and is financed by Vadym Rabynovych, an oligarch who was recently accused of acting as a middleman in the sale of Ukrainian tanks to the Taliban in the mid-1990s. Mr. Rabynovych holds dual Israeli-Ukrainian citizenship, is the head of one of two competing Jewish organizations in Ukraine, and is persona non grata in the United States. The title of this bloc is also meant to appeal to the gay community, whose international flag is made up of the colors of the rainbow.

Mr. Rabynovych went ahead and created his own election bloc after falling out with the PZU, which he helped to finance in its successful return to Ukrainian politics in the March 1998 parliamentary elections. In an interview in August 2001 in Stolichnye Novosti, a newspaper funded by Mr. Rabynovych, Ukrainian Ambassador to Canada Yuri Shcherbak initially toyed with the idea of heading the Rainbow coalition as an alternative green bloc to the PZU. Dr. Shcherbak founded the Green World Association in 1986 and was the first head of the PZU, which he now accuses of having betrayed green ideology. Mr. Rabynovych and Dr. Shcherbak have known each other since the early 1990s, when the latter was Ukraine's first ambassador to Israel.

On February 20, the Central Election Commission cancelled the registration of Raiduha, following a verdict by a Kyiv district court saying that the bloc was formed in an illegitimate manner. This decision has left the PZU as the only group representing Ukrainian environmentalists in the elections.

Genuine green parties, in the same manner as genuine women's parties, find it impossible to be successful in Ukraine's political system. Only parties that have been captured by oligarchs (such as the PZU) or created especially by them for the elections (Women for the Future) can be successful because they have financing and, being pro-presidential, also have access to "administrative resources." The Raiduha bloc was not successful in winning popularity because Mr. Rabynovych was no longer on good terms with the executive. The Women of Ukraine Party, the only other registered gender party, also has failed to win support because it is backed by neither the oligarchs nor the executive.

Ukraine's largest green party, the PZU , grew out of the Green World Association, an ally of the Rukh nationalist movement in the late Soviet era. It is contemporary Ukraine's third-oldest political party, and at its inaugural congress in September 1990 it championed both "ecosocialism" and state independence. Its main base of support then was western and central Ukraine, the same as Rukh's.

After Ukraine became an independent state in 1991, the PZU began a long period of decline. In the eyes of Ukraine's elites, environmental problems became less important than ensuring sufficient energy supplies in the face of Russia's use of energy pressure, mounting debts and a shift in world prices. During the PZU's stagnation, in October 1993 it elected a new leader, Vitalii Kononov, who has remained in that position until today. In 1994, before the PZU was taken over by oligarchs, the PZU joined the European Federation of Green Parties.

The PZU re-entered the Ukrainian political scene in the March 1998 elections when it won 5.44 percent of the vote. The new PZU was very different from that created in 1990-1991. At its peak the PZU held 25 parliamentary seats, which has since declined to 15, and it boasts 52,000 members - small by the standards of other oligarchic parties.

The PZU's 1998 success was due to two factors: a very effective Western-style advertising campaign, and a huge injection of new finances. As with the Women for the Future party in the current elections, the PZU campaigned in 1998 on an "anti-party" ticket with the slogan "Politicians Utilize Demagoguery." This attracted disaffected young people (the PZU was one of the youngest factions) and those easily turned off by politics.

The main financier of the PZU since 1998, as well as the Women for the Future whose campaign is building on the earlier success of the PZU, is Vasyl Khmelnytskyi, No. 3 on the PZU election list, and director of the huge Zaporizhstal plant. He was successful in recruiting other businessmen who needed a "krysha" (roof) to protect their business interests in telecommunications, banking, insurance, hotels and, more surprisingly, energy. Mr. Khmelnytskyi's additional support for Women for the Future has been made possible by his close relationship with President Leonid Kuchma and First Lady Liudmyla Kuchma.

Throughout the entire term of the 1998-2002 Parliament, the PZU remained loyal to the president without going overboard in its support, presumably so as not to turn off potential young voters. Only two minor government positions were granted to the PZU. Last year, Ambassador Shcherbak severely criticized the PZU's lack of legislative initiative in the current Verkhovna Rada.

The PZU has 9.9 and 7 percent support in southern and eastern Ukraine, respectively, and its two strongest bases are Zaporizhia and Odesa. Ironically, in western and central Ukraine, where the PZU began 10 years ago, its support is only 5.1 and 3 percent, respectively, according to a January poll by the Center for Economic and Political Studies. Mr. Khmelnytskyi's two pet projects, the PZU and Women for the Future, therefore, will enter the next Parliament, but neither is likely to promote green or gender issues.

Taras Kuzio is a research associate at the Center for Russian and East European Studies, University of Toronto.

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