Analysis of the recent Kyiv mayoral election results has understandably focused on the commanding victory of under-fire incumbent Leonid Chernovetskiy, who has responded to the lampooning he has suffered at the hands of his opponents by recording a landslide victory. But while the election may have signalled the transformation of Mr. Chernovetskiy from his Leo the Cosmonaut public persona to de facto King of Kyiv, this latest vote also marks a new nadir in the long decline of Viktor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine party, which failed to breach the 3% barrier for the Kyiv Rada and will now not feature on the city council for the first time since the party’s founding.
This fall from political grace has mirrored President Yushchenko’s own plummeting approval rating. It is in many ways a damning verdict on Our Ukraine’s perceived failure to live up to the ideals of the Orange Revolution as well as the party’s growing reliance on the kind of Byzantine scheming that voters associated with the Kuchma era politicians which Our Ukraine had claimed to be ousting. The demise of the political force which propelled Mr. Yushchenko to the presidency and acted as the nerve centre of the Orange Revolution will necessarily have far-reaching implications for the Ukrainian political firmament, and will produce realignments within the current parliament that could force fresh elections on the vote-weary populace.
Huge potential, poor performance
Our Ukraine was originally formed in 2001 to offer an electoral platform for Viktor Yushchenko in the 2002 parliamentary elections. Mr. Yushchenko had recently been ousted from the prime minister’s office and was establishing himself as the political leader of the widespread but often disjointed opposition to the Kuchma regime. Initial results were extremely encouraging for him: Our Ukraine topped the spring 2002 ballot with 23.5% of the national vote, making it the single biggest party in the new parliament, while only a series of backroom deals allowed pro-presidential forces to form a parliamentary majority and cut short Mr. Yushchenko’s moment of triumph.
The national reach of Our Ukraine provided Mr. Yushchenko with the logistical clout necessary to launch his opposition campaign in 2004 at a time when most Ukrainian media outlets were hostile to the Orange campaign, organising mass opposition rallies throughout the country that allowed the under-fire presidential candidate to get his message across to the electorate. The party was also instrumental in providing thousands of grass roots election observers and played a key roll in coordinating the mass protest movement that eventually forced a re-run of the presidential election run-off. As the Orange Revolution blossomed, Our Ukraine flags fluttered from rooftops and tent poles across central Kyiv. The party appeared set for a period of dominance unprecedented in Ukrainian politics.
Taking the blame for Orange failures
Our Ukraine’s inability to capitalise on the prominent position it had won for itself by early 2005 is inextricably linked to disappointment at President Yushchenko’s failure to seize the initiative presented by the momentous events of 2004. Much like Mr. Yushchenko himself, the party has proved itself incapable of striking up a working relationship with its only natural ally, the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc, and has splintered apart over the issue of power-sharing and collaboration in government. It has repeatedly flirted with the idea of a so-called broad coalition with the Party of Regions. This apparent victory of political pragmatism over longer term ideological interests has left the party open to ridicule and left its reformist credentials in tatters.
As a direct result of this highly unpopular politicking the Orange electorate has deserted Our Ukraine in droves, leaving the party floundering on less than 15% of the vote in each of the past two parliamentary elections despite the considerable advantage of having the vast administrative resources of the president’s office at their disposal. This damning verdict has come alongside a huge increase in support for Mrs. Tymoshenko, who has styled herself as the true heir to the ideals of the Orange Revolution and claimed the lion’s share of the majority Orange vote for herself.
Coalition collapse imminent
This final denouement of Our Ukraine in the Kyiv elections should kick-start the scramble for pieces of the party’s political carcass, with the likely outcome the emergence of a number of relatively small groupings, few of which will entertain realistic chances of making it into parliament in the foreseeable future. President Yushchenko will probably cling more desperately than ever to the flimsy hopes offered by a broad coalition with the Party of Regions. Kyiv is already witnessing the beginnings of the realignment, with new centrist parties being touted and Mrs. Tymoshenko publicly declaring that the coalition government has ceased to function. Mr. Yushchenko now faces a long, uncomfortable summer, more isolated than ever by his reliance on the outbursts of the unelected Presidential chief of staff Mr. Baloha and resoundingly rejected by the electorate. The only avenue now open to the President would seem to be an ever greater reliance on the mechanisms of state which remain under his control while reflecting on the fact that he has overseen one of the most remarkable collapses in a party’s popularity in modern European history. As Our Ukraine’s grip on the machinery of state has expanded, their grass roots support has evaporated, but the party has proven incapable of learning the necessary lessons from this rejection. As a result they are on the brink of extinction.
