Last weekend an event passed virtually unnoticed in Kyiv. But people should have sat up and taken notice. Concluding their joint conference in Kyiv, the Eastern European Christian Democrats formed a new party in Ukraine. Their bureau, which will be based in Kyiv, is headed by Ukrainian MP Volodymyr Stretovych, the leader of the CDU. Next year there are plans to create an organization called the Eastern European Christian Democratic International, something along the lines of the Socialist International.
How are the Christian Democrats faring in Eastern Europe? In Lithuania, the winner of the recent parliamentary elections was the opposition party Union of the Motherland, which consists of Conservatives and Christian Democrats. The party received more than 40 percent of the vote.
In neighboring Moldova, the Christian Democrats have a stable 8 percent of electoral support. Christian Democrats are also represented in the Georgian parliament. However, in Armenia, Belarus, and Russia there are no Christian Democrats in the legislative branches of power.
As for Ukraine, there are few Christian Democrats in our parliament, and their prospects in the next elections are quite dim. Nobody knows with whom they will team up, if they participate at all. If they enter the elections solo, they will not be able to pass the three percent threshold.
The Day talked about the prospects of the Christian Democratic movement in Ukraine, and the current political situation with the leader of the CDU.
What do you think about the general prospects of Christian Democracy in Ukraine, a country where most people were raised as atheists under Soviet rule? Does it have a future?
Of course it does. We will do our best to create an electoral basis, our own voters, just like our brothers in Moldova. In every election they receive the same stable support, at about 9 percent. This means that they have already created voters who trust them, and they work with them. The prime minister of Lithuania is a Christian Democrat. We are ready to adopt this experience, although those processes develop much easier in the Baltic countries, which were under Soviet domination for only 30 or 40 years, not 77, like in Ukraine.
In our country people treat everything labeled “Christian” with a certain apprehension. That’s the way things are. However, if we look at sociological data, the Church is the most trusted of all social institutions, followed by the army, and then everything else.
I am loath to bring this up, but I have to ask you about the political crisis in Ukraine. What is your prognosis: will any agreement be achieved this week?
This week, on Wednesday or Thursday, a coalition will formed with the participation of Lytvyn’s bloc and others. It will be a roll-call coalition. And parliament will start working with a majority of 240 to 250 votes. I want this to happen, so as not to have elections without choice, because nothing is going to change in Ukraine as a result of this confrontation. Until new elites are formed, until we see managers who have been formed in the modern Ukraine, there is no hope for improving the situation.
However, the situation may improve after the next presidential elections, when the new president will form his team.
According to the latest sociological data, the president’s ratings have tumbled to 4.1 percent; next comes Symonenko, with a rating of 4.0 percent, meaning that President Yushchenko is only 0.1 percent ahead of the communists. According to FOM-Ukraine, a virtual Yushchenko Bloc has 2.7 percent. What can help the president climb out of this electoral abyss?
I am afraid that in the current situation, especially after the two-month confrontation, nothing can help raise the president’s electoral potential. I am even more afraid that if he leads a party’s electoral list and receives a small number of votes, his legitimacy as the head of state will be questioned. The head of state cannot be mistrusted this way. At that point, according to the code of honor, he would have to resign and announce early presidential elections. To my mind, they are not going to be successful for Viktor Yushchenko and those who advise him.
With whom will the CDU join up in the parliamentary elections, if they are held?
You know that I am against the elections, so I won’t even discuss this issue. Let’s worry about one problem at a time. Once the election issue is clear, and the Central Election Committee announces the beginning of the campaign, we will hold our convention, and during the discussion we will decide who will be our partners.
