Last Saturday’s convention of the Party of Regions (PoR) was aimed at taking over the party Strong Ukraine. Tihipko, currently deputy to the PoR leader, Mykola Azarov, also stands a chance of becoming chief of PoR parliamentary campaign staff. Media reports indicate that Tihipko’s people will be given various executive posts and that this has been agreed upon with the Party of Regions. In fact, Strong Ukraine’s leader rejoined the PoR team two years back, after Yanukovych won the presidential race. In 2010, Tihipko accepted the post of Deputy Prime Minister under Prime Minister Mykola Azarov.
Tihipko deserves every credit for his eloquent address to the Party of Regions’ convention. Although he mentioned Strong Ukraine, most likely by force of habit, the rest of the presentation was on behalf of PoR. This spectacular presentation, however, isn’t likely to make up for his third place in the 2010 campaign (13.06 percent of votes) or make the electorate of this newly made PoR member cherish any hopes for a new political figure in Ukraine.
As it was, the PoR convention appointed two deputy party leaders on Saturday: Serhii Tihipko and MP Leonid Kozhara. The following is a brief interview with Mr. Kozhara.
Congratulations! How would you describe the benefits of this merger?
“This is a democratic procedure practiced across the world. Serhii Tihipko and our leadership voiced their stand, so from now on we’ll campaign together.”
Will this unifying process continue? We know there are talks underway with Viktor Baloha’s United Center and Volodymyr Lytvyn’s People’s Party.
“The Party of Regions is acting like all political parties elsewhere in the world, like the Parti Populaire Francais, the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, or United Russia. We’re struggling for power, using all democratically acceptable means.”
But then there will be no competition. This isn’t likely to benefit the Party of Regions.
“Ukraine’s political system with some 200 parties is absolutely not viable. It is in the primary development phase. This country will be able to adopt the Western democratic model with five, even two, rather than fifty, political parties in the power play. These parties will then be able to rely on ideological principles.”
Unification talks are also underway in the opposition camp. What do you think?
“They may come up with additional unifying stimuli, but what we can see now is proof that they will most likely fail to do so. What is the difference between the Party of Regions and other political parties today? We have a chain of command. Our party creates leaders, not the other way around. Talking about the opposition, I’d like to point out that most of the opposition parties were created by a single person, organized the way that best suited that person.”
How many parties would you like to see in opposition? One, two, maybe three?
“The Ukrainian political system is apparently falling into step with the American one, what with their two strongest parties: the Democratic one in the north and the Republican one in the south. Ukraine has a similar party division; abstractly speaking, there is a strong party in the east and another strong one in the west of Ukraine, along with the possibility of a strong leftist party, considering that this ideology still has lots of supporters.”
Russia’s recent presidential election had an absolutely predictable outcome. What about Ukraine’s relationships with Putin’s Russia?
“That campaign’s outcome was clearly apparent. We know Putin, we know his team, so I don’t expect any unpleasant surprises there. Today’s commodity turnover with Russia amounts to 57 billion dollars, compared to 50 billion dollars between Russia and Italy, which makes it clear that Ukraine is a very important business partner for Russia, and vice versa. I expect progress in every aspect of our bilateral cooperation.”
“Putin’s program newspaper article reads that, in 2015, Ukraine will be a member of the Eurasian Alliance.
“There is a law of Ukraine on the principle of domestic and foreign policy. It reads that Ukraine is headed for European integration. Diplomacy is the art of the possible. Having a strategic objective in mind and employing certain vehicles to reach it is one thing, but realpolitik is a different story. Here things are done unlike what is committed to paper.”
