Our common history and lack of any language barrier do not mean that political processes must be identical: such is the bottom line of these elections. Having flouted all recommendations from outside, the Ukrainians made their own choice. Incidentally, our domestic prophets made their recommendations in so clumsy a way that one wanted to ignore what they said and vote the other way around. So what is the result?
THE COMMUNISTS
First, we now know the number of hopelessly poor and discouraged Ukrainians. The only option they have is to vote Communist, being aware that the clock cannot be turned back. Still, they will never vote for the powers that be under any circumstances. A number of political scientists believe that the Communist electorate is part of the strategy to keep the present regime afloat, but in reality they are just the low income and spiritually deprived people. They will obediently give their votes to Communists, in the same way as they used to live, because they have never seen any other alternative. Those reflecting on the likely tactics of the Communists in the new parliament should not forget that their voters are miserable people discarded by fate and who can do nothing else but to tread the party line. Their total number will soon be finalized by the Central Electorate Commission.
THE WEST
No one can match the voters in Western Ukraine for orderliness. But unlike Communist pensioners, the orderliness of westerners is subject to fluctuation. Thrashing about with their political preferences, westerners would almost unanimously vote for Kravchuk, Kuchma, or Yushchenko, leaving no room for pluralism or even political intrigue. Given this, the only thing a candidate should do is to become a person on whom fair-weather Galician and Volyn voters would pin their temporary political hopes. The remainder is a technical problem. The victorious march of Yushchenko’s multifarious team in this region was stopped in a few constituencies only by local politicians from bygone days when no one was aware of the existence of the new messiah (Viktor Yushchenko — Ed.).
THE AUTHORITIES
One does not have to be a mathematician to know that the majority voted against the present regime. To call oneself a pro-regime party in the election campaign was equal to political suicide, with the pro-presidential For A United Ukraine Bloc getting a humiliating vote — humiliating not for themselves but for the authorities. The reasons are obvious: how could voters have trust For A United Ukraine if these campaigners had no trust in what they said and did not trust each other? Being appointed leader of this bloc, Volodymyr Lytvyn definitely felt ill at ease in his new role and no wonder, with quite a few ambitious politicos on his team breathing down his neck. The bloc’s campaigning in the regions had two layers. If, bursting to ensure a victory for themselves in territorial constituencies, local candidates bent over backwards to make it to the parliament, their roles in getting new votes for party lists were minimal. They may have a point though, their own seats will be theirs, while the ruling party can be replaced. Why all then try too hard?
THE OPPOSITION
Quite unexpected by many, the high votes scored by Moroz and Tymoshenko have proven yet again that the regime is no voters’ darling and mass media reports are not held in trust. It’s like a trip to the Soviet past when, after listening to the radio or watching television, citizens went to acquaintances and neighbors for genuine information. This is how the most incredible rumors and unrecognized heroes came to be. Meanwhile, lulled by their supposedly high (homemade) ratings, the leading domestic media lost their fighting shape.
They should not have trusted the public opinion polls so much. Because it is only in America or Europe that a newspaper’s or television channel’s high rating ensures the absolute confidence of the populace in some newspaper or television channel. We have different mechanisms here, dating back to the times of Stalinist propaganda when no one was so foolish to trust the official news. The elections have eventually demonstrated to the mass media barons the amount of their actual grip on political thinking of Ukrainians. That the romantic period of late eighties, when journalists were the idols to millions, is gone was evidenced by the clear failures of those journalists who took the risk of running for elected office. I do not mean those chance outsiders with Union of Journalists membership cards or even press corps IDs. I am speaking about really mainstream and popular journalists. They are listened to, known, but they are not believed. The one who is believed is Yushchenko, even when he keeps silent.
YUSHCHENKO
The leader of Our Ukraine succeeded in preserving his high popularity and steering to Verkhovna Rada over one hundred of his followers, including those who ran in districts. Yushchenko’s potential rivals have two options: either to side with the nation’s hope to get to the parliament or to compete with him. Siding with Yushchenko was a better option which is quite customary for Ukraine where they say that an obedient calf can nurse on two cows, while competing with Yushchenko was not that easy. Despite the obvious desire to beat him and the available administrative resource, his rivals did not do their homework, with their hired campaign planners actually carrying the bags for Yushchenko rather than for their clients. Do you recognize the deja vu pattern? The same overconfidence and inability to keep up with the time that was typical of the nomenklatura of the eighties is a hallmark of the present regime. True, the authorities have a knack for striking deals with those of their opponents much trumpeted by the media controlled by the regime. This knack, also a legacy of the eighties, to a certain extent counterbalances sloppy campaigning. Yushchenko, however, cannot be viewed as the authorities’ opponent and his success merely gave him the equal footing for bargaining with the regime.
THE FUTURE
I will risk predicting that the future battles will be waged in accordance with our domestically made, not foreign, scenarios. Numerically, the opposition might call the shots in Verkhovna Rada if all the pre-election declarations come true. In a more realistic scenario, however, a wide majority can be based only on the party of power. Despite their quite remarkable election tally, neither Moroz nor Tymoshenko can drum up enough support to impeach the chief executive, with Yushchenko being reluctant from the start to oust Kuchma. Those who put their money on the leader of Our Ukraine are after more tangible objectives than some illusory control of Verkhovna Rada.
SIX, NOT EIGHT
The triumph of the domestic election campaign planners over foreign ones has already been mentioned here as one of the positives in this year elections. Another positive is the number of parties and blocs that made it to Verkhovna Rada on party lists. This is quite in line with other countries, showing that political structuring of our society is going slowly but surely. Even if the choices made by Ukrainians in March 2002 were more emotional than rational, the new Verkhovna Rada constellation is more encouraging than four years ago. The voters did not fall for green, orange, female and other red-herring projects. The period of such games is over, and this gives us hope. We are almost set for purely party elections, and scenarios involving over one hundred parties that do not represent anyone are already history. It is really not that important whether the Yushchenko Bloc will exist as a party in one or two years to report to its voters about its track record or disappear from the political scene. The leader will stay to report for those whom he steered into the legislature under his name. Meanwhile, there will be another election.
