Ukraine is entering the autumn political season with virtually the same Cabinet of Ministers as in the spring (only the acting two ministers have been replaced) – although the scope and complexity of the tasks facing the government have changed dramatically.
Neither the ongoing anti-terrorist operation in Donbas nor the fragmented parliamentary recess have broken the Ukrainian politicians' habit of timing the start of active political action to September—this timeframe is the focus of both the broadcast schedules of leading television channels and the deployment of regional structures by competing political forces. An additional factor spurring political participants to focus on early autumn is the virtually inevitable parliamentary elections. The "X-factor" is the emergence of new social groups in Ukraine: those involved in the conflict in the east and internally displaced persons.
"k:" analyzed the starting positions of political "heavyweights", their goals and objectives at the start of the political season.
Petro Poroshenko: take over parliament
The president's primary goal is to hold early elections to the Verkhovna Rada and form a loyal majority in the new parliament. This will be the best guarantee that a future rift between the Verkhovna Rada, the Cabinet of Ministers, and the Presidential Administration will not develop. Of course, the head of state's ultimate goal is to end the standoff in the east of the country (as he promised during the election campaign), but it is already clear that the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) is dragging on unnecessarily.
Poroshenko plans to convert his still-high approval rating into mandates and form a coalition based on deputies elected to the Verkhovna Rada who are personally beholden to the president. A mixed electoral system is, however, hardly the ideal option.
But Poroshenko's team hasn't yet reached a final agreement on which major political players it will join forces with. Even if it does involve cooperation with UDAR, it's unlikely to be a 50/50 split (Poroshenko will either receive priority or reject the alliance). Plus, there remains the possibility of reaching a cooperation agreement with Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Oleksandr Turchynov (more on that below).
Incidentally, although the proposal for party blocs to participate in the campaign failed to gain support from the current Verkhovna Rada, an unconventional but entirely acceptable option has already been floated: forming a party tentatively called the Petro Poroshenko Bloc. Sociologists (referring to "closed" studies) estimate that this hypothetical force will receive approximately 30% of the vote.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Oleksandr Turchynov: It's time to make up their minds
The fact that Yatsenyuk has become cramped within Batkivshchyna, and that a dark cat has run between Turchynov and Yulia Tymoshenko, has long been an open secret. Currently, at least 15 members of the United Opposition parliamentary faction (including prominent figures Mykola Martynenko, Andriy Ivanchuk, Andriy Pyshnyy, Hennadiy Moskal, and Serhiy Pashynskyy) are aligning themselves with the Prime Minister and the Verkhovna Rada Speaker, giving them a significant head start on their own.
Yatsenyuk, according to those in the know, was hoping to top the list of the "power bloc" formed by the president, UDAR, and the so-called "ANTI-TO heroes," but the amendments to the Election Law failed to pass. So, for now, the prime minister is deliberating: whether to quickly rebrand the "Front for Change" (with Turchynov, Arsen Avakov, and Andriy Parubiy as partners), join the aforementioned Poroshenko Bloc, or withdraw from the possible race altogether, having received guarantees of his tenure as prime minister in advance from the main political players.
However, every day that the country's socioeconomic situation worsens diminishes Yatsenyuk's chances of such a compromise: the temptation to assign blame for the practically inevitable autumn collapse is too great. Moreover, there is no formal coalition in the Verkhovna Rada—any political force can criticize the government.
Cabinet of Ministers: Find or appoint those responsible
The current composition of the highest executive body missed a golden opportunity for renewal—under the pretext of the coalition's collapse and either the prime minister's resignation or demarche, it would have been possible to carry out long-overdue personnel changes. Moreover, complaints about specific managers who were clearly "unfit" even for the role of "kamikaze" were voiced even before the presidential election. The ministries of Economy, Healthcare, Agriculture, Youth and Sports, and Social Policy were clearly overdue for personnel changes. Not to mention that large-scale reform remains a mere wish from the Maidan era—the Cabinet of Ministers can only boast of a dubious "emergency" in the energy sector.
But the political maneuvering of July ultimately led to everyone being held accountable for the actions of the current Cabinet of Ministers (the President, who insisted on Yatsenyuk retaining his post, and the Rada, which rejected his resignation), and no one—except the Prime Minister himself. While Yatsenyuk has room to maneuver as a public figure, as Prime Minister, he will either have to find the "guilty" or admit that the current Cabinet has failed to implement reforms or maintain the socio-economic situation (Kyiv's lack of hot water is just the first sign, not to mention the issue of internally displaced persons).
Sergey Levochkin: Choose whoever you want
The former head of the presidential administration is a perfect example of putting eggs in different baskets. There are people within UDAR who are not indifferent to Serhiy Lyovochkin's interests; Oleh Lyashko's "radical" project is even directly linked to him; informed sources report that the "Civic Position" movement is also involved. Anatoly Gritsenko — isn't exactly a political force alien to Lyovochkin. And that's not counting the project called the Party of Development of Ukraine, whose public figures include former Party of Regions members Yuriy Miroshnichenko and Sergey Larin.
It's certainly possible that the influence of Viktor Yanukovych's "grey cardinal" is somewhat exaggerated, and his figure demonized by detractors. However, this coming fall, Lyovochkin appears to be planning to kill several birds with one stone—assuming, of course, that early elections become a reality. First, he will bring into parliament the maximum number of deputies personally aligned with him, under the banners of formally unaffiliated parties (UDAR, the "radicals," and Hrytsenko currently have every chance of making it into the Verkhovna Rada); second, he will secure a mandate in one of the single-member constituencies; and third, he will test the PrU with an eye on future local elections.
Serhiy Tigipko: Our song is good…
By participating in the presidential elections, Sergei Tigipko achieved a victory that, while not overwhelming in arithmetic terms, was psychologically significant: he demonstrated that his personal rating was higher than that of the candidate from the remnants of the Party of Regions.
Tihipko's current challenge is to remain in politics, as it's not a given that his freshly painted "Strong Ukraine" party will clear the electoral threshold. Several former Party of Regions members will likely join Tihipko. For "Strong Ukraine," it's crucial that these candidates be strong single-mandate candidates: lists are a gamble, but in single-mandate constituencies, it's already more or less clear who will win, as the tight campaign timeline will make things difficult for "new faces." For Tihipko himself, the key question remains the extent to which Ihor Kolomoisky will show favoritism toward his project.
Freedom: Need a friend's help?
During the negotiations over the outlines of the new electoral legislation, Svoboda advocated lowering the electoral threshold to 3%—not surprisingly: anti-Russian rhetoric is unlikely to impress many voters these days, and Oleh Lyashko, it turns out, has proven more effective than Oleh Tyahnybok in terms of "bone-based PR." Ultimately, according to information leaked from the Presidential Administration, Svoboda members managed to reach an agreement with the president on a "non-aggression" and a "division" of single-member constituencies—without such support, the national radicals' chances of forming an influential faction in the new Rada would have looked very slim.
Tyahnybok faces a number of other challenging tasks: restoring trust in Iryna Farion, one of the main public faces of his political force (Svoboda has a general problem with popular politicians at the national level), and finding at least some accomplishments in the work of his fellow party members delegated to the Cabinet: Oleksandr Sych, Ihor Shvaika, and Andriy Mokhnyk. And the "slap in the face" from Ihor Kolomoisky (the scandal involving Serhiy Rudyk's "sending to the front") also demands some kind of response...
It's surprising, but given this state of affairs, the Svoboda party still manages to focus attention on seemingly unimportant matters, such as adding a "nationality" column to a passport.
Batkivshchyna: every time like the last
The PR campaign on lustration and self-purification, as well as the formal fight for open-list elections, have fueled interest in what was once the most popular opposition party. However, opinion polls currently place Yulia Tymoshenko's allies only third (10-12%), behind "Poroshenko's party" (whatever its name) and Lyashko's party.
Batkivshchyna's prospects, of course, largely depend on Yatsenyuk's decision (rumor has it that Tymoshenko might even give up her top spot on the party list to the prime minister to maintain her alliance with him), but several unpleasant surprises are also in store for her opponents this fall. Poroshenko, for example, will certainly be reminded of the informal slogan of the presidential race: "One-round elections mean peace."
Paradoxically, at the moment, Batkivshchyna's situational allies are Lyashko, Hrytsenko, and, possibly, Ihor Yeremeyev: as it turns out, there is a real possibility of reaching a "non-aggression" agreement with them in the single-member districts—while Bankova, UDAR, and Svoboda have shown little interest in such negotiations.
Oligarchs: Surviving in the New Reality
The tried-and-true "buy a party and don't worry about anything" strategy is unlikely to help the billionaires in the upcoming elections. The Party of Regions, the traditional engine of big business, is in dire straits. Tihipko's potential is far from limitless. About 40 single-member constituencies are located in Crimea and the ATO zone. The president is his own oligarch, formally unconnected to any of the top 10 Ukrainian super-rich (UDAR, of course, is linked to Dmytro Firtash, but Firtash is in Vienna, and his future is in Washington's hands). The looming economic collapse is forcing a scaling back of politics, and, frankly, the prospects for the new Verkhovna Rada are uncertain: no one can predict how long the parliament will last or what could trigger its possible early termination.
Judging by the latest data, the oligarchs have been forced to adopt a defensive strategy: Rinat Akhmetov, Viktor Pinchuk, and Dmytro Firtash will "align themselves against" Ihor Kolomoisky. The latter is temporarily riding high and would be willing to capitalize on the popularity gained during the ATO campaign for his own political project, but caution is likely to prevail: Kolomoisky is rightly counting on the success of his protégés in single-member constituencies in the Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, and, to some extent, Zaporizhia and Kharkiv regions.
Veterans, Volunteers, Activists: Realize Your Power
It's unlikely that Right Sector leader Dmitry Yarosh seriously expected his announced "march on Kyiv" to be successful—far more important is the fact that the threat of intervention in the already unstable political situation of the "Eastern Front veterans" was publicly voiced for the first time.
According to official figures, there are 50 ATO veterans in Ukraine—a drop in the electoral bucket, but this is one case where numbers don't convey the slightest idea of their socio-political weight. The consequences of the conflict in the east of the country (prepare yourself for the term "Donbas syndrome") will be felt for at least the next decade. While the parties are embroiled in conflict, future veterans have no time for political projects "in their own name," but this won't always be the case. And the extent of their influence is impossible to predict. This, incidentally, is an indirect answer to the question of whether the authorities are interested in ending the conflict before possible early elections.
Internal Migrants: Hope for Concerned People
The number of internal migrants, according to official data alone, has exceeded 100, and their numbers are growing daily. However, an equally alarming trend is the polarization of attitudes toward refugees among residents of the "prosperous" part of Ukraine.
For the displaced persons themselves and the Ukrainians remaining in the ATO zone, the main problem is how to survive the winter. Each family will have to decide whether they plan to return to the devastated region or start a new life.
For now, those who fled their homes in the east can only hope that the authorities will finally legislate their status. As is well known, Poroshenko vetoed the law on displaced persons approved by parliament, and a new one is still being drafted. There is still no separate government body to address this issue, although such a structure is promised to be created soon.
Assistance to displaced citizens today falls to humanitarian foundations and concerned citizens. However, issues such as an open property registry, changes to business re-registration rules, and streamlining the process for receiving unemployment benefits for displaced persons cannot be resolved by volunteers alone.
Rustem Khalilov, Alexander Ivanov. Comments:
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