February 24 marked the fourth anniversary of the People’s Democratic Party (NDP), Ukraine’s first attempt to institutionalize a party of power as a party. This was done in order to create what NDP’s second-in-command Yevhen Kushnariov described as “a party of people prepared to conduct a constructive cooperation with those in power.” Unfortunately, NDP tried artificial means to introduce its party structures into the administrative and bureaucratic machine. “We stimulated the process of ‘partisanization’ within the bureaucracy; we created a party with an eye to uniting all those bureaucrats. We did not mean to create a party of power,” admits NDP’s first Chairman Anatoly Matviyenko.
Trying to influence the regime, the born-again democrats obviously overestimated their potential. After the NDP leadership’s declaration that the party would back Leonid Kuchma during the campaign subject to the condition that he carries out a number of requirements, the NDP suffered a rift. Afterward, this first party of power started losing influence quickly. Even resorting to an internal party purge, ridding its ranks of “dissenters,” the list being topped by Anatoly Matviyenko, did not help, just as the party’s “selfless support” of Leonid Kuchma during the presidential race failed to improve the situation. His reelection did not become NDP’s triumph.
The triumph went to other parties. Valery Pustovoitenko’s resignation, the NDP fraction dwindling in Parliament, and its losing government posts are all evidence that the People’s Democratic Party with its “nonpartisan ideology” was stillborn. At present, the NDP is feverishly groping for all those “party reforms” and “reorganization” projects to find its place in the new alignment of Ukrainian political forces.
The Day asked Borys BEZPALY, one of the NDP’s founding fathers and member of the organizing committee, to comment on the situation that has developed. He had this to say:
The NDP is living through a trying period, largely due to the fact that its original political niche found itself confronted by powerful rivals. Now the NDP motto “Leonid Kuchma is Our Choice!” is being used by SDPU(o), Democratic Union, and other political parties. The “newcomers” proceeded to elbow out the NDP even during the 1998 parliamentary elections. Now the process seems accomplished. Now this camp is a scene of severe competition for the right to emerge in the next election campaign under the presidential patronage. The loss of Leonid Kuchma’s support was a very painful blow to the NDP, because this party does not have a political personality of its own. Thus all talk about the NDP taking its own stand is senseless.
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