No need to frown, Rada

The results of the Ukrainian elections suit both Kuchma and his opponents

The long-awaited elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, which during the stormy campaign were heralded either as a dress rehearsal for the presidential marathon or as determining the future course of the country, ended in a draw. Both supporters of President Kuchma and his opponents have reasons to be pleased. Party in power “For a United Ukraine!” The head of the administration, Vladimir Lytvyn, took third place and, taking into account the large number of majority mandates, will form a powerful faction; the loyal Social Democrats of Viktor Medvedchuk also entered the Rada. The failure of the authorities can be considered the defeat of the “greens” and “Women for the Future” under the patronage of Lyudmila Kuchma - these pro-presidential parties were supposed to join the future majority.

On the other hand, the radical oppositionists - the Social Party of the initiator of the “cassette scandal” Alexander Moroz and the bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko, who feared that they would simply not be “allowed” into parliament with the help of “administrative resources”, confidently overcame the four percent barrier. Of the prominent figures of the past composition, progressive socialist Natalya Vitrenko did not get into the Rada. The main winner was the Our Ukraine bloc of Viktor Yushchenko. Although the ex-prime minister claims that many votes were stolen from him and intends to challenge the results in “dubious” constituencies, for the first time in the history of independent Ukraine, the first place in the number of voter sympathies was won not by the communists, but by the right. The Communist Party of Ukraine, however, was not far behind. Voters in the west and center of Ukraine voted for Yushchenko and Tymoshenko, for the communists and “For FOOD!” - in the east, behind the SDPU(o) - in the center and south.

The opposition calls the vote a watershed between democracy and dictatorship, into which the country almost slipped (SPU leader Moroz). Viktor Yushchenko promises to change the “Ukrainian political portrait” for the better by achieving accession to the EU within five years. Western observers are satisfied with the victory of the national democrats, assessing the quality of the Ukrainian elections “higher than in Zimbabwe.” Financiers like the high percentage of economists and businessmen who will improve the investment climate (head of the supervisory board of NRB-Ukraine Vyacheslav Yutkin). Russia is already satisfied that it “sees who it will talk to in the next years” (FEP head Gleb Pavlovsky), and predicts a period of instability. The success of the Yushchenko bloc, which the Kremlin has registered as an anti-Russian force, and the Tymoshenko bloc, with whom Ambassador Chernomyrdin even refused to meet “for radicalism,” of course, makes few people happy in Moscow.

The election winners promise to first arrange a vendetta against Kuchma. “What happened crossed the line of what was permitted,” so the first initiative of the communists will be impeachment, said the leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine Pyotr Symonenko, who believes that he will be supported by the Tymoshenko bloc, Our Ukraine and the SPU. Both Tymoshenko and Moroz passionately advocated for such a scenario even before the elections. Negotiations are underway with Yushchenko to create a democratic majority that will resist pro-presidential forces, said the head of the headquarters of the Tymoshenko bloc, Alexander Turchinov. Yushchenko himself immediately after the elections said that “political forces for which Ukraine is above all” must “find mutual understanding.” However, it is not yet a fact that the cautious ex-prime minister will want to go into open opposition now, two years before the presidential elections.

The “golden share” in the new parliament will again, as in the current Rada, belong to Leonid Kuchma - thanks to the diverse composition of the deputy corps, a wide field for action opens up for presidential lobbyists. Thus, Kuchma has long learned to negotiate with communists, and an effective means of fighting the “democratic majority,” if one appears, will be a split in the Yushchenko faction, where there are many politicians loyal to the government. Lytvyn has already stated that “For a united Ukraine!” will create the largest faction in parliament - 125-130 deputies (no more than 40 were elected according to the party list). In addition to the majoritarian deputies, the reserve of replenishment is the Yushchenko bloc, which, after “thinning out”, has a chance to become obedient.

“Majoritarian deputies will greatly influence the overall political result. At their expense, the ranks of the bloc “For a United Ukraine!” will be replenished, says Andrey Ermolaev, Director of the Sofia Center for Social Research. “If you turn on the whole mechanism,” falsifying 7% of the votes is not difficult, said Alexander Dergachov, editor of the magazine “Political Thought.” “It’s alarming that the counting of votes is still ongoing,” said Igor Popov, chairman of the voters’ committee, last night. Two observers, from Denmark and Norway, barricaded themselves in the building of one of the polling stations, where gross violations were revealed. International observer Chad Nagle was beaten along with deputy Vladimir Filenko for trying to film election violations. There was even a recorded case of ballots being eaten. In the 50th district in the city of Zhdanovka, a lawbreaker who tried to cast four extra ballots ate two of them.

The strangest situation has arisen in Crimea. Although on March 31 the local election commission had in hand a court decision to deregister the speaker of the autonomous parliament Leonid Grach, this decision was not implemented. The result was his convincing victory in the district. If the Supreme Court of Ukraine, which will consider Grach’s cassation appeal the other day, confirms previous court decisions, the election results in the speaker’s district will be declared invalid. According to preliminary data, approximately the same number of supporters of Crimean Speaker Leonid Grach and his rival, ex-Prime Minister Sergei Kunitsyn, have so far entered the new Crimean parliament.

Svetlana STEPANENKO, Kyiv