Presidential election 2010: potential outsiders of the first round

There are also candidates who are trying to use the presidential campaign 2010 as a tool of creating their image and ensuring successful development of their political career (Sergiy Ratushniak, Vasyl Protyvsikh, Oleksandr Pabat etc.). But their goals are rather vague since they have started the presidential campaign with the most ambitious aspirations. Each of them will do their best to use their entire potential and resources to win as much support of Ukrainian voters as possible. But the question is if they will succeed in preserving the maximum confidence level their will manage to achieve. Not only will they have to ‘steal’ votes from the campaign leaders, but also to create their own image of the ‘alternative’ to the existing political brands, such as Viktor Yushchenko and Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense, Volodymyr Lytvyn and Lytvyn bloc, Petro Symonenko and Communist party of Ukraine, which with their representation in the parliament have promoted themselves both through propaganda and legislative activities in the Verkhovna Rada (in particular in the social sphere).

Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense, Lytvyn bloc and Communist party have failed to fulfill their election pledges in their law-making activities, managing to implement a tiny part of their campaign platforms. Thus we have to ask ourselves if these political brands (Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense, Communist party and Lytvyn bloc) will be capable to fulfilling their new platforms after the presidential election 2010.

Viktor Yushchenko’s team (law-making potential)

Viktor Yushchenko plunges into the presidential campaign from the best possible position, the post of the President of Ukraine, which has both advantages and disadvantages for him. Among positive factors is the fact that he has a rather powerful canvassing tool – an easy access to the media, making appearances on TV and radio, covering his achievements as a president in different spheres; trips to the regions, where the president’s visit is not only a significant event as it is, but also an evidence that the president takes care of his people. One of the most negative factors is people’s habit of blaming the president of a large chunk of mistakes in ruling the country. 

However, it would be a huge overstatement to say that President Viktor Yushchenko enjoys support of the Verkhovna Rada because Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense, a pro-presidential parliamentary faction, has only 72 members today.

Even though Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense is formally a rather young political formation, it is full of ‘the same old faces’. The Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense faction is actually comprised of People’s Union ‘Our Ukraine’, political party Vpered, Ukraino!, People’s Movement of Ukraine (Rukh), Ukrainian People’s Party, Ukrainian Republic Party ‘Sobor’, Christian-Democratic Union, European Party of Ukraine, civil party ‘Pora’ and the Party of the Defenders of Motherland.

Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense has been lately suffering a certain split, mostly caused by the attempts to fire faction leader Mykola Martynenko and Viktor Yushchenko’s loss of influence on a part of the faction members, who seem to prefer now to support legislative initiatives of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s political force, Yulia Tymoshenko bloc. Under the current circumstances, it makes it rather challenging for Viktor Yushchenko to push his legislative initiatives through the parliament: since he seems to be unable to gain unanimous support of his own political force, he is not likely to win support of other parliamentary factions either. That’s besides the fact that members of the Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense have not been exactly productive in the law-making field this year.

Back in 2007, members of Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense declared three strategic goals in their election platform (creating a legal state, uniting the nation through spiritual renewal and implementing a new economic strategy based on state-of-the-art technologies) and promised to cancel legislative immunity and all privileges of Members of Parliament, establish a national anti-corruption office, create a fair the law-enforcement and judicial system, ensure financial self-sustainability of territorial communities and form professional armed forces in Ukraine by 2010. Obviously, none of the declared planks have been fulfilled so far. However, there have been a few attempts at canceling legislative immunity, but all of them had been predestined to fail long before the voting actually started.

Just like their main opponents, members of Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense promised to raise benefits for families with newborn babies and children. They also intended to raise salaries and introduce differentiation of pensions. It was also planned to make available the so-called social housing. In the tax field, the pro-presidential faction swore to do its best to ensure adoption of the Tax Code, eliminate criminal ‘VAT payback’ schemes (with the tax preserved), simplify the tax system fro small-scale business. The faction’s law-making priorities were healthcare, affordable higher education, development of science, cultural and spiritual renewal and revival of Ukrainian village.

The research done by the Open Society Foundation suggests that most legislative efforts of Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense were directed at the political and legal sphere (59 bills out of 188), economy and social sphere (33 and 20 bills respectively). Representatives of this parliamentary force also focused on combating corruption: a number of bills were dedicated to eliminate this disaster in Ukrainian society, ranging from declaration of expenses of civil servants to establishing special police units to combat corruption. Moreover, the Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense bloc tried to directly fulfill one of the planks of its election platform as it took part in drafting a bill on the National anti-corruption investigative office. This interest in the problem could be explained not only by the faction’s intent to fulfill its pledges, but also by the fact that the leader of one of the bloc’s political forces (People’s Self-Defense) was Yuri Lutsenko, the then interior minister. That was why Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense also worked on increasing responsibility for traffic violation.

The faction also tried to improve Ukraine’s balance of payment and save the country’s insurance market from the economic crisis. Another bill in this sphere introduced a temporary on tax and duty increase.

MPs from Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense also made a big step towards their voters as they tried to fulfill one of the most important planks of their election platform: together with the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc, they introduced a draft Tax Code and worked on limiting unplanned state control measures in economic activities.

They also remembered about the housing issue of the most disadvantaged part of the population and initiated (together with other parliamentary factions) a bill on public housing for citizens of Ukraine. Taking a closer look at law-making activities of members of the Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense faction, it becomes clear they have never even considered starting fulfilling most planks of their platform. Revival of Ukrainian village, salary and pension raise and healthcare have been neglected so far.

The real picture of implementation of its election platform, i.e. a number of bills introduced by the faction that have passed the Verkhovna Rada, is the best estimation of law-making efficiency of this parliamentary force. The total of four bills, drafted by representatives of the pro-presidential faction, have become laws. From January – August 2009, members of Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense drafted a law on provision of military personnel during business trips to public bodies, institutions and organizations (which had nothing to do with the bloc’s platform), amendments to the law on excise rates for tobacco (a secondary bill which could have never been mentioned in the bloc’s platform).

Members of Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense in cooperation with MPs from other factions introduced amendments to some laws of Ukraine on space activities. Finally, they worked on a bill stimulating the use of alternative energy sources (the faction promised to decrease Ukraine’s energy dependence, in particular through the use of alternative energy sources).

All seven planks of the bloc’s platform with specific pledges, even figures, have fallen prey to the faction’s limited abilities. All of the bills that have passed the parliament and become laws were drafted in cooperation with several other factions. So, the parliament’s third biggest faction has failed to fulfill its election pledges in spite of its status of a coalitional parliamentary force.

The fact whether the platform was successfully implemented or not is highly significant for democratic political systems since it is an indicator of accountability and responsibility of politicians. In this context, Viktor Yushchenko’s election pledges seem rather indicative.

During the 2004 presidential campaign Viktor Yushchenko came up with the platform ‘Ten Steps Towards People’ and presented 14 ‘draft resolutions’ in October-November which he pledged to sign once he became a president.

The efficiency of his work should be assessed taking into account the Constitutional reform, which took effect on January 1, 2006 and changed dramatically the system of power distribution in the country and areas of responsibility of top-ranking civil servants. Since January 1, 2006, President Yushchenko has not had an ability to influence the prime minister and has not been responsible for economy of Ukraine. Another important nuance, introduced by PM Viktor Yanukovych (the second prime minister, appointed after the Constitutional reform), was the regulation under which all decrees issued by the president were to be signed by the prime minister and a (field) minister. The president’s decrees are not valid without their signatures.

What has President Viktor Yushchenko managed to accomplish under the said circumstances?

On the official website of the Head of the State (http://www.president.gov.ua/docs/10krokiv.pdf), you will find a detailed report on the implementation of the president’s platform in the Platform of the President of Ukraine ‘Ten Steps Towards People’ and Its Implementation in 2005-09 section.

In particular, speaking about his pledge to protect the value of family, respect for parents and rights of children, the president stresses that state financial assistance for children has been raised to 12,5 thousand hryvnias, the birth level grew by 20% in 2008 as compared to 2004.

“In the last four years, the number of adopted children has grown by 20%. Today, more than 35 thousand adopted children have found families in Ukraine. We introduced on January 1, 2009 an unprecedented financial assistance, a single payment of 12 240 hryvnias, for families with adopted children and doubled assistance for orphans and neglected children”, the president says.

The key project of President Yushchenko aimed at protecting mothers and children was ‘Warm A Child With Your Love’. As of May 19, 2009, the project included 568 large families who needed the total of 137 mln. hryvnias of state allowance. The project is funded by Ukrainian businessmen from all regions of the country. The president has also signed a decree to establish a single payment (10 subsistence wages) to women with the honorary status of Mother-Heroine.

In the sphere of foreign policy, according to Viktor Yushchenko, the foreign trade volumes more than doubled in 2005-08, including the increase of 95% of export volumes. “It was possible when in Ukraine became a WTO member in 2008 (while Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus have not succeeded in gaining WTO membership yet)”, the president says.

The report presents Viktor Yushchenko’s accomplishments in the sphere of strengthening moral values: the funding of the programs of conservation of art and cultural monuments, archeological heritage, museums and historical monuments has grown four times (from 300 mln. hryvnias up to almost 1,2 bln. in 2008). The president has also signed a number of decrees focusing on the development of national publishing business and measures aimed at the cultural and spiritual revival of Ukraine.

In 2005, 63 mln. hryvnias was raised in Ukraine for reconstruction of architectural and art objects in the country, including 32 mln. hryvnias for Hetman Kyrylo Rozumovsky’s Palace (Baturyn, Chernihiv oblast), 15 mln. hryvnias St. Sophia’s Cathedral (Kyiv), 14 mln. hryvnias for Khortytsia Island, and several millions for the conservation of such historical monuments as Kamyana Mohyla (Stone Tomb) and Chersonesos. The implementation of these projects resulted in thousands of new jobs created.

In November 2006, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine passed the president’s bill on recognizing Golodomor (famine of 1932-33 in Ukraine) as genocide against Ukrainian people.

Viktor Yushchenko speaks about his achievements in all 10 areas of the platform. However, Anatoliy Hrytsenko, MP of Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense and another presidential candidate, who was responsible for the development of the platform ‘Ten Steps Towards People’, feels rather negative about the implementation. “The implementation percent is unsatisfactory. One of the major reasons for the failure is personnel errors. The Constitutional reform was obviously a major factor, but before 2006, the president had had enough powers to at least initiate the required reforms”, he says.

Viktor Yushchenko’s election platform trends and probability of their implementation

President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko has not changed views since the last presidential election. In his new platform ‘Free, Fair and Strong Ukraine’, the leader of the Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense bloc says that the only right direction of Ukraine’s development is European integration and joining NATO. He says that Ukraine has demonstrated a dynamic economic growth and clear social direction of its development in recent years. Viktor Yushchenko is especially proud of the fact that the state budget has doubled, direct foreign investment has increased six times, and deregulation of the business sphere has begun. The state budget has really doubled, but the inflation rate has grown even more, and the national currency, hryvnia, has dramatically changed its value in the last few months. Among his achievements Mr. Yushchenko cites Ukraine’s joining WTO, but according to opinion polls, when asked if their life has changed after Ukraine joined WTO, most respondents say they have not felt any changes.

Viktor Yushchenko’s election platform is almost a carbon copy of the previous one with a list of several significant achievements. It is called to continue the European course of the state and ensure European standards for Ukrainians. Other trends of the platform of the presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko are as follows:

-          initiation of the Constitutional reform (open lists of parliamentary candidates, majority electoral system at the local level; canceling immunity of deputies, judges and the President of Ukraine);

-          Ukrainian joining EU (visa-free travel for Ukrainians to EU member-states, rights of Ukrainians abroad);

-          the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation leaving Ukraine by 2017 under the Constitution of Ukraine and the signed agreements;

-          a transparent formula of salary and pension calculation;

-          employees of the education, culture and healthcare spheres receiving status of public servants;

-          judicial reform (people will have a right to recall judges and file appeals to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine);

-          combating corruption (Anti-corruption office);

-          luxury tax;

-          increase of the share of students with state-paid education so that all talented children could have free education;

-          protection of mothers and children (mothers of children who go to kindergarten and primary school will have their working hours reduced by one without the salary reduction);

-          reform of the consumer rights system, increasing control over the quality and safety of products, primarily infant food;

-          one of the priorities of overcoming the economic crisis will be saving jobs (the state will introduce additional incentives for companies, special job mobility programs, flexible reaction of education to market demand);

-          hryvnia will become the only means of payment in Ukraine, no foreign currencies will be used in the domestic market;

-          additional taxes and dues will not be introduced, advance payment of taxes and double income taxes will not be demanded (the VAT system will be brought in line with European standards);

-          decentralization is a success formula (the local communities receive money, powers and responsibility for solving their problems);

-          the state will establish reliable mechanisms of legal guarantees for business, protection of ownership rights, prevention of monopoly;

-          public support of hi-tech and innovation sphere;

-          introduction of the transparent land market based on the contemporary land cadastre (which will increase the flow of investments in Ukrainian village and modernization of village infrastructure);

-          increasing budget support of the village and development of the soft lending system;

-          the state will stimulate modernization of the transport infrastructure, ports and railway stations, construction of high-speed motorways;

-          the revision of modernization of the national gas supply system and its integration in the European gas supplies system;

-          the Armed Forces of Ukraine will become powerful and professional.

These election pledges provide a rather detailed full description of Viktor Yushchenko’s future action plan if he wins the 2010 presidential election. But the implementation of the declared development directions will depend on the fact if Viktor Yushchenko will win support of the Verkhovna Rada and the situation of the pro-presidential Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense faction.

Most probably, during the election campaign Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense will try to resolve internal conflicts and re-unite the forces within the bloc, eliminating in this way the ‘to support or not to support Yushchenko’ question. If the faction actually succeeds in it, it will have to win support of other parliamentary factions, in particular the Lytvyn bloc. If Viktor Yushchenko gets to the second round of the presidential election, the latter will be used to guarantee the increase of the number of his voters.

In the event of President Viktor Yushchenko winning the election, the parliament is in for some dramatic change, including early parliamentary election. Not only would it change the disposition of the political forces in the parliament, but would create prerequisites for new formats of coalitional units within the Rada.

With Viktor Yushchenko winning the election, the Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense faction can hope for a greater support of voters than during the previous parliamentary election, which would result in more MPs supporting the president in the parliament. It would enable them to influence the format of the parliamentary coalition by simply partaking in it. One of the possible formats of the parliamentary coalition in this case would be Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense + Party of the Regions + Lytvyn bloc. This coalition could stay unchanged in the Verkhovna Rada for several years (or, probably, for the entire presidential term of Viktor Yushchenko if no serious conflicts arose within the coalition), forcing the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc and Communist party to occupy the oppositional niche.

In terms of legislation adopted, one should not expect these political forces to easily reach agreement on certain issues, especially in the case of the platforms of Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense and Party of the Regions and their views on foreign political cooperation with eastern neighbors and the West. In all other aspects of the state life (economic and social policies), they are likely to work unanimously, under the influence of the third member of the parliamentary coalition, Lytvyn bloc, which has been campaigning with the pledge to ‘fight poverty’ for several elections in a row.

Volodymyr Lytvyn’s team (legislative potential)

At the start of the 2010 election campaign, Volodymyr Lytvyn has some rather powerful leverages in store to influence public opinion. Firstly, he is the Speaker (Chair) of the Verkhovna Rada, which provides him with the platform to appeal not only to MPs, but also to voters, positioning himself as a ‘political arbiter’. In this way, Volodymyr Lytvyn distances himself from the clashes between the parliamentary factions, which is another advantage creating the image of ‘the most constructive politician’.

Secondly, Volodymyr Lytvyn with his own parliamentary force, Lytvyn bloc, has settled well in the law-making field, in particular in the sphere of social policies. Though there are only 20 members in the faction of the Lytvyn bloc (People’s party, Labor party of Ukraine) in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, its legislative activities produce a positive impression as compared to law-making efforts of other parliamentary forces. Lytvyn’s team has drafted 64 bills since the beginning of the year. However, they don’t exactly reflect the planks of the bloc’s platform.

The Lytvyn bloc declared the following pledges in its election platform: creating an effective economy; establishing social consumption standards; introducing hourly remuneration of labor; repaying deposits of citizens; combating alcohol and drug abuse; increasing salaries of teachers, doctors and research scientists; and introducing public control of prices of medicines.

Volodymyr Lytvyn’s supporters were especially generous in their election pledges promising:

to increase the number of social housing and to give interest-free home loans to young families;

to introduce real estate tax and fair income tax;

to reduce tax pressure on small and medium-scale business and cancel VAT;

to prevent sale of agricultural land, introduce amendments to the Land Code, provide technical and credit support for farmers;

to implement political reform (re-establishing majority voting system, combating corruption, reduce the Cabinet’s apparatus etc.).

According to the Open Society foundation, the country received only 64 bills from the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc from January – August 2009, most of them aimed at solving various political, legal and field issues (13 each), or economic issues (11 bills). There were no bills covering education, science, local self-government, budget and medicine, though these were the highlights of the bloc’s election platform. However, Lytvyn’s team (in partnership with the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc and Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense) took care of the rights of people from rural regions, introducing amendments to the law on private farms and single tax for such households. The Lytvyn bloc did not forget its pledge to cancel VAT either. As a result, they produced two bills in collaboration with other factions. But their efforts in this sphere were limited to certain amendments to the law on VAT.

Members of the Lytvyn bloc also tackled land issues, offered state financial aid to families with children, and provided social security for members of private farming households. They also remembered their pledge to provide voters with affordable accommodation.

Besides the abovementioned, they focused on such unimportant issues as raising restrictions on parcels and packages for convicts, legalizing rights of high-qualified town development experts to apply for a chief architect of administrative-territorial units. They also pushed the law on seed production.

In fact, such were the results of law-making efforts of the parliamentary faction of the Lytvyn bloc, which demonstrates again the lack of political and moral accountability of Members of Parliament before voters.

Volodymyr Lytvyn’s election platform trends and probability of their implementation

Presidential candidate Volodymyr Lytvyn returns to his former ideas declared in his platform for the parliamentary election campaign, elaborating and making them more specific though.

This time, Volodymyr Lytvyn has set himself and his political force the following major goals (some of them presented below):

Social and economic sphere: overcoming poverty (which is mentioned in every platform of the Lytvyn bloc, but is never accompanied by a specific action plan); stabilization of the national currency and stopping inflation; reducing deductions from salaries; implementing all guarantees introduced by Art. 57 of the Law of Ukraine on education (which sounds rather weird since under the law, this law does not need Volodymyr Lytvyn’s guarantees to take effect); public funding of social housing; introducing general rates for utility bills; introducing a progressive tax system and luxury tax; reforming inter-budget relations (70% of funds stay at the local level, 30% are transferred to the center); introduction of public control of medicine quality and prices.

Village and environment: revision of all agricultural lands; establishing the Fund for Village Support to fund new jobs; establishing the State Land Bank; ensuring European standards of air and water control; complete ban on the import of GM products to Ukraine; ban on the use of Chernobyl region as a radioactive waste storage area etc.

Combating corruption: classifying corruption as high treason; depriving civil servants charged with bribery, abuse of official position, of their pensions; prohibiting top-ranking state officials to work for commercial companies for three years after resigning from public service; reevaluation of public servants to check their profession competency and connections with commercial structures; restoring people’s control etc.

Political and cultural spheres: adopting the Election Code; introduction of open list parliamentary elections and local majority elections; reducing the number of Members of Ukrainian Parliament to 300 persons; eliminating the institution of immunity; establishing executive committees at the regional and oblast levels, dissolving state administrations; spiritual and moral revival based on Christian values etc.

Defense and foreign affairs: In his election platform, Mr. Lytvyn declares the importance of pursuing a neutral status of Ukraine based on active neutrality and implementing the concept of a single economic space with Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. At the same time, Volodymyr Lytvyn supports the concept of signing a cooperation agreement with EU, free movement of people, goods, services and capitals.

In his 2010 election platform, the leader of the Lytvyn bloc guarantees that he will build a society and country ruled by social harmony and justice, care about every person, humane government and serving people. 

Speaking about actual implementation of the platform, it is highly important to indicate a relation between ‘implementation’ and ‘representative’ of the Lytvyn bloc in the Ukrainian parliament. Everything will depend on the results of the presidential election, and Volodymyr Lytvyn’s chances to win are purely hypothetical. Below you will find several scenarios of the hypothetical participation of the Lytvyn bloc in law-making work of the parliament.

1^st scenario. Viktor Yushchenko wins the presidential election. In this case, after the change of the format of the Verkhovna Rada through an early parliamentary election the Lytvyn bloc will receive ‘a golden share’ – a coalitional majority of the Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense + Party of the Regions would be impossible without it. If he chooses to join this coalition, Volodymyr Lytvyn will probably receive the post of the Verkhovna Rada Speaker, which will boost legislative efforts of his faction. Predictably, law-making activities of the Lytvyn bloc and Party of the Regions or Lytvyn bloc and Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense will be focused on the social sphere, including raising social standards, pensions, salaries, subsistence wage and other types of financial aid. In this case, the Lytvyn bloc will increase its electoral potential promoting its major trend, ‘struggle against poverty’.

2^nd scenario. Yulia Tymoshenko wins the presidential election. Then Volodymyr Lytvyn and his political force would find themselves in a rather unclear situation since the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc would try to create a loose coalition with representatives of the Party of the Regions, who might leave the faction if Viktor Yanukovych lost the election. In this case, the Lytvyn bloc (which might be in opposition) could implement its projects only with the approval and support of the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc. But Volodymyr Lytvyn and his team could also be offered to join the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc as a member in exchange for the post of the Verkhovna Rada Speaker.

3^rd scenario. Viktor Yanukovych wins the presidential election. In this case, the Lytvyn bloc could join the Party of the Regions and Communist party coalition, which is the most probably way for representatives of the Party of the Regions if their candidate wins the election. Volodymyr Lytvyn’s political force would be able to act rather effectively in the legislative field taking into account some common ground with the Party of the Regions and the Communist party of Ukraine. Under such circumstances, legislative initiatives of social character would become a part of competition since communists would do their best to outdo the bills filed by the Lytvyn bloc.

Petro Symonenko’s team (legislative potential)

Petro Symonenko, the leader of the Communist party of Ukraine, started his election campaign with uniting representatives of most Ukrainian left forces. The Communist party of Ukraine, Social Democratic party of Ukraine (united), parties Spravedlyvist and Union of Left Forces entered into agreement to establish an electoral bloc of left and left-centrist forces for the 2010 presidential election campaign. However, Vasyl Volga, one of the initiators of the union, regrets that Oleksandr Moroz and Natalia Vitrenko could not ignore their own presidential ambitions and refused to join the bloc. At the same time, the uniting factor of the left movement around Petro Symonenko ensures his strong position in the ‘left’ electoral field.

Petro Symonenko’s parliamentary team, the faction of the Communist party of Ukraine which consists of 27 members, cannot claim being as effective in law-making as its leader in uniting activities. Members of the Communist faction have managed to come up with only 63 bills, which is significantly less than declared in the election platform of the Communist party during the last parliamentary election.

Communists planned to eliminate the institute of presidency, public administrations, the immunity of deputies, judges and other state officials. In the economic sphere, the party pledged to check legality of privatization, make strategic industries state-owned, and make foreign trade state monopoly. Representatives of the Communist party of Ukraine also declared innovative development of economy, energy independence of the state, and promised to cancel VAT. Moreover, they planned to introduce state order of half of agricultural products and to allot funds (up to 10% of GDP) to support agricultural producers.

Among the social initiatives of the Communist party of Ukraine were the following:

-          pension not lower than subsistence wage;

-          doubling actual income of working population;

-          public regulation of prices for the most socially essential categories of goods and services;

-          funding the development of the education and science sphere, social benefits for families with newborn babies, increasing stipends;

-          free healthcare;

-          public funding of construction of housing for disadvantaged population.

In its election platform, the Ukrainian Communist party also took on responsibility to provide for language and cultural needs of citizens of all nationalities, adopt a new Constitution and make Russian and the second state language in Ukraine.

According to the Open Society Foundation, the parliamentary faction of the Communist party of Ukraine focused its legislative efforts on the political and legal sphere (20 out of 63 bills), neglecting the social sphere and industrial development. According to the conclusions of the Foundation’s analysts on the legislative acts initiated by the Communist party, it worked mostly on secondary legislation. Ukraine’s communists focused on increasing the prestige of miner’s profession, increasing penalty for vandalizing monuments to Soviet soldiers, free pass of unemployed persons, even protecting animals from brutal treatment, the status of hero cities of Odessa and Kerch and about the use of authentic copies of the Victory Banner.

The implementation of the declared platform plank about public ownership of strategically important industries was limited to a proposal to return the Korosten china factory and Kherson machine building plant to the state.

Thus the declared planks of the election program of the Communist party have been on a rather low implementation level while members of the Communist party have been focusing their legislative efforts on the current temporary needs of social life.

Petro Symonenko’s election platform trends and probability of their implementation

Speaking about the election platform of the presidential candidate Petro Symonenko, it is to be noted that it is highly similar in its style to the previous basic platforms of the Communist party of Ukraine. Typically for communists, it focuses on finding somebody to blame for the current situation in the country. This exact title opens Petro Symonenko’s platform – ‘Who is to blame?’.

Ukrainian communists accuse ‘the orange regime of oligarchs and nationalists’ of ‘leading Ukraine to catastrophe, distorting the government and judicial system, ruining the basic foundations of the state’. It is just a short quote from the text, but it characterizes perfectly the position of the Communists and their attitude to the present authorities and their representatives (Yulia Tymoshenko bloc, Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense, Lytvyn bloc and partially Party of the Regions due to certain situational coalitional voting with representatives of the ‘post-Maydan political scene’).

In the key planks of the election platform, the Communist party with its leader Petro Symonenko offers the following:

-          realistic alternative to the existing regime – ‘power of workers, socialism and friendship of different peoples’;

-          Ukraine becoming a parliamentary republic;

-          reviving the system of public control to combat corruption;

-          major decisions to be taken at the all-Ukrainian referendum;

-          establishing executive committees of councils at the local level;

-          eliminating immunity of state officials, deputies and judges;

-          giving trade unions the right of legislative initiative;

-          giving people the right to elect and recall judges;

-          provide the army with funds received as a result of reducing the state apparatus. The armed forces will be receiving money from 2011 saved by eliminating the presidential post;

-          strict parliamentary control of activities of the Ministry of Interior and Security Service of Ukraine (SBU);

-          calling all-Ukrainian referendum in 2010 on the status of the Russian language in Ukraine, to make it the second state language while preserving and strengthening the existing status of the Ukrainian language;

-          protecting Orthodox Church and providing for free development of all traditional denominations; banning totalitarian sects.

Among the top priorities of the Communist party of Ukraine are

-          nationalization of basic industries and bankrupt companies;

-          introducing the centralized planning system;

-          restoring public ownership of land;

-          revising all unequal international agreements signed by the present regime;

-          introducing a progressive income tax system, real estate and luxury taxes;

-          ensuring the development of the system of state banks.

Communists are convinced if implemented, these measures will create prerequisite for the achievement of the major goal – improving life of working population of Ukraine. A salary part will be established on a legislative level in the structure of prime cost of products – not less than 60%; struggle against poverty will be the top priority of state policy.

Foreign policy concepts have not changed much in the new platform. Its main priorities are

-          legislative provision and international legal confirmation of neutral, non-bloc status of Ukraine, the country not seeking NATO membership;

-          active support of the idea of forming a new general European and Euro-Atlantic security structure, based on the non-confrontational thinking and non-bloc approach;

-          restoring and development of equal, mutually beneficial relations with strategic allies, the Russian Federation and the CIS states. An important step in this direction would be Ukraine joining the Single Economic Space with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Active policies in all directions are in the national interest of Ukraine;

-          a valuable contribution to European integration would be creating a trilateral energy consortium with participation of Ukraine, Russia and EU member-states;

-          the question of Ukraine joining the Single Economic Space and its NATO membership shall be considered in 2010 at an all-Ukrainian referendum.

In general, most of the planks of the election platform of the presidential candidate Petro Symonenko, the leader of the Communist party of Ukraine, can be implemented only if he wins the 2010 presidential election, which according to the results of the latest opinion polls will be a rather challenging task for him since the electoral support of the ‘single candidate of the left forces of Ukraine’ remains at the level of 4-5% with minor deviations. Therefore the participation of his political force in forming a new coalition in the future parliament is rather hypothetical.

The parliamentary faction of the Communist party of Ukraine will probably have to seek compromise not only with the winner of the 2010 presidential campaign, but also with their political force in the Verkhovna Rada. There are a number of versions of participation of the Communist party in the future parliamentary unions.

1^st scenario. If Viktor Yanukovych, the leader of the Party of the Regions, wins the presidential election, the Communist party of Ukraine might be offered to take part in forming a parliamentary coalition with the Party of the Regions and the Lytvyn bloc. Such a format of cooperation could prove really effective for communists both in terms of initiating social bills and positive vote for them, since social parts of the platforms of the Communist party, Party of the Regions and Lytvyn bloc are quite similar and don’t contain any dramatic discrepancies (the only difference lies with figures of raising social benefits). However, in case of the reform of the state system, the Communist party is not likely to win support of the Party of the Regions, which would ensure such initiatives remained unadopted.

2^nd scenario. If the presidential election 2010 is won by a representative of the ‘orange camp’ – President Viktor Yushchenko or Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko – the Communist party of Ukraine will most likely join the opposition, remain untouched by any new formats of the parliament and focus its efforts on criticizing activities of possible coalitional unions. Communists will not stop producing more legislation under such circumstances. Quite on the contrary, they will continue working on bills which will become a quality alternative to legislative initiatives of a new parliamentary coalition.

Conclusions

The closer to the presidential election, the less enthusiastic voters are growing. Quite obvious is a trend opposite to the previous presidential election – Ukrainians do not believe any of the present candidates. Moreover, they don’t believe in themselves anymore, in their ability to change something. Before the 2010 presidential election people have lost their interest in politics and politicians. According to the last opinion poll conducted by New Image Marketing Group, more than one third of Ukrainians have not decided yet if they will take part in the voting and what candidate they will support, while 12,3% of respondents are not going to support any of the presidential candidates.

Such data reflect an actual situation with parties fulfilling their election pledges. A declarative character of election platforms turns into a norm of ‘political etiquette’, which acts as a negative sign for voters. Citizens expect not only spectacular implementations of political trends in propagandist documents of presidential candidates, which are proudly called ‘election platforms’, but also their actual implementation through legislative activities of Members of Parliament.

The 2010 presidential election can become a tough test for both, candidates and their political forces. Voters are going to cast their ballots not only for leadership skills of candidates, but also for platform planks of the parties they represent.

The results of the forthcoming presidential election will influence further terms of development of the country and change the faction structure of the national legislature, which is most likely in for a change of its format through an early parliamentary election. It might have a certain hidden threat causing serious decrease in law-making activities of MPs who will focus instead on their fight with opponents for power.

Igor Novikov