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Passing "Freedom"

October 22, 2012 Inna Bulkina

On Sunday, October 14, exactly two weeks before the elections to many thousands of march in Kyiv, Ukrainian nationalists took place. The march was dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the creation of the Ukrainian rebel army (UPA). From the university square and the monument to Taras Shevchenko to Mikhailovskaya Square was a column with red-black banners and portraits of Stepan Bandera. “Freedom” speaks of thirty thousand participants, the Air Force correspondents - about fifteen. In any case, this is the most spectacular and large -scale public event of all that have been held in Kyiv in the past few years.

In fairness: the anniversary of the creation of the UPA Ukrainian right celebrates regularly, this time it turned out an order of magnitude more crowded than usual. But the peculiarity of the Sunday march is not only on the scale of the procession: oddly enough it will sound for the uninitiated, but almost all right -wing parties refused to participate in the anniversary Kiev festival, except for the “freedom” of Oleg Tyagnibok. UNA-UNSO activists went to celebrate Volyn and Galichin, as they themselves explained: "To the places where the UPA really fought." Viktor Yushchenko celebrated the anniversary in the Ternopol region, there was the headquarters of the rebels. It was from the press service of Yushchenko that the keyword “PR” sounded. “The day of creating the UPA is not the time for PR in Kyiv,” said Yushchenko, Irina Vannikova, spokesman Yushchenko.

Political technologists and informed media people agree that the Kiev procession with decorative smoke bombs, red-black symbols, military camouflage and slogans “Glory of the Nation” are nothing more than a spectacular television, launched, by the way, in the prime-Time through state channels. Its real meaning is in the mobilization of the electorate of the Party of Regions and Communists. Actually, the “freedom” for this is needed by the regions and it is precisely for these purposes that they are contained (with the fact that “freedom” is the project of the Yanukovych party, it seems, the most zealous fans are not arguing).

In other words, everything that took place last Sunday in the center of Kyiv is nothing more than a staged “opereta”, played in the final of the election campaign solely in order to extend the interest of the party in power, not only in Sevastopol and Lugansk, but also in the center, where the ratings of the Party of Regions are traditionally “sagging”. For the most part, it is, but in parallel these days in Kyiv there is another game - sociological.

For some time, sociologists have become key players in Ukrainian electoral battles. It seems that the heads of sociological services in recent weeks are mentioned in the media more often party leaders. Ukrainian voters really do not know either the programs or credit history of future parliamentarians, but they know their ratings, “real” and “fake”, “passing” and “impassable” ones, they know the discrepancies in numbers from various sociological services, they are from now on sociological intrigues with interest, surveys and forecasts.

Ten days before the “hour x”, ​​a ban on the publication of all sociological data comes into force, and on the eve of the Institute of Sociology, the final press conference was held. She did not introduce clarity, the intrigue remained, and almost the main plot made up the “passing percentage” of “freedom”. According to Ukrainian Tizhnya, out of eight sociological services-the participants of the round table, the three unequivocally argued that the “freedom” was overcame the 5%barrier, the two said that it was “on the verge of passage”, and two more clearly stated that “does not pass”. The eighth participant, Director of the UKRainInsocioologyService Alexander Veshnyak, admitted that he did not have data on the "nationwide" district. Differences in numbers in different services are about 5%, and this is by no means at the level of permissible error. So Gfkukraine (Gleb Vishlinsky) gives the Party of Tyagnibok 3%, and KMIS (Valery Khmelko)-7-9%. What are the real numbers, we will find out in 10 days. But what is the meaning of the sociological game - the percentage of the depths of the ultra -right ones overstate or underestimate or why do you need it? It is possible that behind the supposedly passing rating is the same “mobilization” idea as for the Kyiv procession. But if the truth is, as usual, in the middle, and 3% GFK is the lower limit, and 9% kmis is a “gaping peak”, then “freedom” actually has a chance to “slip”. And then a real intrigue will begin. How will a provocateur party behave, a spuler party, being in parliament? Whether she, like the Communists, will play on notes and vote on a command or will be on the opposition rostrum, and then, according to the same sociologists, the opposition will be a majority (albeit visible): approximately 123 mandates will take the united opposition Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Vitaly Klichko and “Freedom” - against 102 communists and regions.

Photo by RIA Novosti