Party of the Regions, Tymoshenko Bloc top polls in parliamentary elections
by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau
KYIV - The Party of the Regions of Ukraine emerged from the March 26 parliamentary elections with the most votes, but it was Yulia Tymoshenko who was crowned the winner.
Defying most expectations, her political bloc placed second in voting, steamrollering over the Our Ukraine bloc and handing her rival and former boss Viktor Yushchenko an embarrassing defeat.
In giving her the majority of their votes, Ukraine's Orange electorate passed the revolution's torch to Ms. Tymoshenko, seizing it away from Mr. Yushchenko who disappointed many when he fired her in September 2005 and signed a pact with Viktor Yanukovych soon there after.
When it became clear that her bloc would finish a strong second, Ms. Tymoshenko called upon the Ukrainian president on March 27 to recreate the Orange coalition in the Verkhovna Rada, with the intent that she'd be at the helm as prime minister once again.
"Either we, for the last 10 years, fought for the result that oligarchs and clans would not simultaneously be the political power in Ukraine, and today we have a victory in that struggle, or we return to the same road that was personified by [former President Leonid] Kuchma," Ms. Tymoshenko said, referring to the possibility that an Our Ukraine-Party of the Regions coalition would be formed.
About 22 percent of the electorate, or 5.6 million voters, cast their ballots for the Tymoshenko Bloc, according to the Central Election Commission's (CEC) final results posted on March 30.
Ms. Tymoshenko's popularity has soared since the 2002 elections, when her bloc earned 1.9 million votes, or the support of 7 percent of the electorate.
So, while the Our Ukraine bloc kept all the symbols and slogans of the Orange Revolution, it was Ms. Tymoshenko who managed to hold onto the hearts and minds of those who stood on Kyiv's Independence Square, known as the maidan.
The Tymoshenko Bloc won 13 of Ukraine's 24 oblasts, conquering 11 oblasts that Our Ukraine had won in the 2002 parliamentary elections.
The bloc also won in the Poltava Oblast, which gave the most votes to Socialist Party of Ukraine in 2002, and the Kirovohrad Oblast, which the Communist Party of Ukraine had previously won.
The Tymoshenko Bloc even won the Sumy Oblast, where Mr. Yushchenko was born and raised, winning 33 percent of the vote compared to 19 percent for Our Ukraine.
The Tymoshenko Bloc also made gains in regions that Our Ukraine could never succeed in.
In five oblasts that typically vote for pro-Russian parties or blocs, the Tymoshenko Bloc placed second, despite the presence of prominent nationalists such as Levko Lukianenko and Andrii Shkil in her party's leadership.
In the Kherson Oblast for example, the bloc won 17 percent of the vote. It won 15 percent of the vote in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, where Ms. Tymoshenko grew up.
While Ms. Tymoshenko enlarged her political sphere of influence, the Party of the Regions secured a plurality in every single one of its oblasts from the 2004 presidential elections, as well as the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
As widely expected, the Party of the Regions proved itself as the dominant force in contemporary Ukrainian politics, earning 32 percent of the vote, according to the CEC's final tally.
More than 8.1 million Ukrainians believed that the Party of the Regions has the best political outlook for their nation.
Almost exclusively a Donetsk party in the 2002 elections, the Party of the Regions has evolved into a national powerhouse representing the interests of Ukrainians who want their government to have stronger political, economic and cultural relations with the Russian Federation.
In 2002 it joined the Za Yedynu Ukrayinu (For a United Ukraine) bloc that had supported the policies of former President Kuchma.
For a United Ukraine won 12 percent, or about 3 million votes, largely due to the Party of the Regions' ability to deliver the Donetsk Oblast, where it secured the support of more than 400,000 voters.
This time around, the Party of the Regions took all the oblasts that had belonged to the Communist Party of Ukraine in the 2002 vote, with the exception of Kirovohrad.
The party won the most votes in eight eastern and southern oblasts, as well as the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, all of which gave Mr. Yanukovych their votes in the 2004 presidential elections.
In the late hours on election day, Mr. Yanukovych declared his party's interest in forming a parliamentary coalition with the other victors, especially hinting of an agreement with the Our Ukraine bloc in order to "remove tensions and unite eastern and western Ukraine."
In the days following the elections, the Party of the Regions sent mixed messages about its foreign policy orientation, first indicating support for European Union integration, but then calling for Ukraine's membership in the Single Economic Space led by Russia.
Mr. Yanukovych also congratulated Belarusian autocrat Alyaksandr Lukashenka on his victory in the presidential election that was resoundingly criticized by the U.S. government and deemed undermocratic by international observers.
If Ms. Tymoshenko and Mr. Yanukovych were the election's winners, Mr. Yushchenko led the losers.
While his Our Ukraine bloc won 24 percent of the vote in the 2002 parliamentary elections, it managed to convince only 14 percent of the electorate to support them this time around.
Mr. Yushchenko's bloc won only three oblasts: Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Zakarpattia. It won 13 oblasts in 2002.
Our Ukraine lost much of its votes to the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, proving her to be the winner of the conflict that drove the Orange forces apart.
After winning 6.1 million votes in the 2002 election, Our Ukraine won 3.5 million votes this time around - a decline of 43 percent.
Ms. Tymoshenko was not the only factor among the Orange forces that hurt the Our Ukraine bloc.
The Kostenko-Pliusch and Pora-Reforms and Order blocs, both of which helped lead the Orange Revolution and shared very similar political positions with Our Ukraine, fell short of the 3 percent barrier.
More than 470,000 Ukrainians gave their votes to the national-democratic Kostenko-Pliusch Bloc, while 370,000 voted for the Pora-Reforms and Order Bloc.
As a result, neither political veterans and Ukrainian patriots such as Yurii Kostenko, Ivan Drach and Stepan Khmara will be in the Rada, nor will Pora leaders Vladyslav Kaskiv and Yevhen Zolotariov.
Mr. Khmara left the Tymoshenko Bloc last September, accusing Ms. Tymoshenko of being an "unpardonable liar" who was ruining Ukraine. He said at the time that he was convinced that she would never become prime minister again.
The other big losers in the 2006 elections were the Communists, who saw their share of the electorate plunge from 20 percent in 2002 to 3.7 percent in this year's election.
Still, the Communists managed to be the fifth and final political force to qualify for the Verkhovna Rada, earning the support of more than 920,000 Ukrainians. More than 5 million Ukrainians had voted for the Communists in 2002.
Perhaps the election's biggest loser was Volodymyr Lytvyn, the Verkhovna Rada chairman who created his own political bloc to compete for the Parliament.
Mr. Lytvyn spent a multi-million-dollar war chest on a nationwide advertising campaign to convince Ukrainian voters that he was the voice of reason that would bring understanding between the Orange and pro-Russian forces.
Instead, Ukrainian voters demonstrated that they weren't interested in a middle-of-the-road, moderate political force, said Serhii Taran, director of the Kyiv-based International Democracy Institute, which is financed by mid-level Ukrainian businesses and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs.
The vast majority of Ukrainians are either firmly in the Orange camp, or firmly support the Party of the Regions, he said.
Mr. Lytvyn's bloc earned only 2.4 percent of the vote, despite widespread expectations that it would easily surpass the 3 percent barrier.
As a result, Mr. Lytvyn is shut out of the next Parliament, as are other cronies of former President Kuchma who joined his bloc, including energy magnate Ihor Yeremeyev, former first assistant to President Kuchma Serhii Liovochkin and former customs chief Mykola Kalenskyi.
Among the election's biggest surprises was the strong performance of Natalia Vitrenko's People's Opposition Bloc, which finished just shy of the 3 percent barrier necessary for representation in Parliament.
Her radical pro-Russian campaign platform drew the votes of more than 740,000 Ukrainian citizens, or 2.93 percent of the electorate.
Voters in the Donetsk and Zaporizhia oblasts gave her the most support. Ms. Vitrenko has already announced her plans to stage mass demonstrations to demand a recount.
Also shut out of the Parliament is the notorious Kyiv oligarch clan known as the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine - United, which formed the Ne Tak! bloc for the elections.
Belonging to this clan are former President Leonid Kravchuk, billionaire oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, Dynamo Kyiv owner Hryhorii Surkis, Soviet soccer star Oleh Blokhin and political apparatchik Nestor Shufrych.
Though they blanketed the nation's billboards and radio airwaves with advertising ridiculing the Orange forces, the "Ne Tak!" (Not So!) bloc only earned 1.0 percent of the vote.
No one political party or bloc earned enough votes to form a majority in the Verkhovna Rada.
On March 28 Mr. Yushchenko began the coalition-building process by inviting the leaders of the three leading political blocs to meet with him for an hour in the Presidential Secretariat building on Bankova Street.
Mr. Yushchenko didn't invite Communist Party Chair Petro Symonenko because their political views are too divergent.
Arriving in a black Mercedes, Mr. Yanukovych met with the president and told reporters afterwards that he was satisfied with the talks, but the party won't start official discussions until after all the votes were counted and it became clear which blocs and parties qualified for the Parliament.
"The Regions informed (Mr. Yushchenko) that as the leaders of the election campaign, we will form a coalition," Mr. Yanukovych said.
The same day, the party's election campaign chief Yevhen Kushnariov said the Party of the Regions will concentrate coalition discussions on key principles regarding Ukraine's domestic and foreign politics, not assigning positions.
"The most complicated discussions won't be economics," Mr. Kushnariov said. "The main divergencies aren't there. More complicated are the foreign policy and humanitarian blocks. This is the subject of NATO. This is means the subjects of Russia as a whole and the Single Economic Space, which, unfortunately, are conflicting."
Mr. Yanukovych is the party's only candidate for prime minister, Mr. Kushnariov said, and all discussions will take place on that basis.
Ms. Tymoshenko emerged from the Presidential Secretariat wearing a confident smile, though some reporters commented that she looked a bit weary.
She and the president discussed defining their goals and uniting around them, she said. Their meeting was the beginning of "detailed, technical discussions regarding nuances and the signing of documents," she said.
Ms. Tymoshenko repeated her conviction that Mr. Yushchenko would renew the Orange coalition.
When asked whether her appointment as prime minister was a stipulation she put to the president, Ms. Tymoshenko replied: "The people's choice is key to understanding who will occupy which positions. I won't comment any further on this subject."
Afterwards, she got into in a black BMW and sped away.
The prior day, Ms. Tymoshenko acknowledged the president's power to dismiss the Verkhovna Rada if a majority coalition isn't formed, but called that a "nuclear weapon."
"I believe that today, on the basis of the people's choice, everything is in place to find an understanding in Parliament between the three political forces and to sign an agreement forming a democratic coalition," Ms. Tymoshenko said.
"I absolutely don't share in the application of the right to fire Parliament, because that would lead to a destabilization of life in Ukraine and a new wave of ruining people's trust in politicians. That's why I wouldn't want such a weapon used," she added.
Mr. Moroz also greeted the president at the Secretariat building. The Socialist Party's political council voted on March 28 to support a memorandum that creates a coalition between the three Orange blocs, and Mr. Moroz repeated his wish to see an Orange coalition renewed.
About 5.7 percent of Ukraine's electorate or 1.4 million votes, cast their ballots for the Socialist Party of Ukraine.
In the 2002 elections, the Socialist Party secured 6.9 percent or 1.8 million votes.
Rather than forming a coalition with the Party of the Regions, Mr. Moroz said he proposed appointing Regions leaders as oblast council chairs in those four or five oblasts where they have the most support in order to prevent increasing Ukraine's divide.
In an indication of which way Mr. Yushchenko's partners are leaning, Our Ukraine's political council met the same day and agreed to form a democratic coalition.
"The party supports the creation of a democratic coalition in the framework of Our Ukraine, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and Socialist Party, and demands the removal of deputies' immunity," said Volodymyr Stretovych, chair of the Christian-Democratic Union Party.
Foreign Affairs Minister Borys Tarasyuk echoed Mr. Stretovych's position, adding that the Party of the Regions must meet three conditions to begin discussions with Our Ukraine.
"First, rejection of the idea of federalism," Mr. Tarasyuk said. "Second, rejection of granting the Russian language government status. Third, acknowledgment of Ukraine's road to Euro-integration."
Our Ukraine won't make any decisions related to coalition building until its political council meets again on April 7, said spokeswoman Tetiana Mokridi.
Ms. Tymoshenko and Mr. Moroz both said they want to sign a coalition agreement as soon as possible.
Our Ukraine's delay in signing an agreement indicates that the bloc is considering uniting with the Party of the Regions, Ms. Tymoshenko commented. Prime Minister Yurii Yekhanurov met with Mr. Yanukovych on March 29, she said.
"This dragging out of the process indicates that quite weighty discussions are taking place between the Party of the Regions and Our Ukraine representatives, which I believe is unacceptable," Ms. Tymoshenko said.
Of the 37.2 million Ukrainians eligible to cast ballots in the 2006 parliamentary elections, 67 percent or 25 million voters, participated.
Four years ago, voter turnout was about 65 percent, as 24.3 million Ukrainians voted.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, April 2, 2006, No. 14, Vol. LXXIV
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