Throughout the current election campaign, analysts have consistently stated that the results of the September 30 vote are unlikely to be substantially different from those of the March 2006 parliamentary elections, leaving the country facing yet more political stalemate and uncertainty. This has not deterred the Tymoshenko Bloc (BYUT) from launching an ambitious promotional campaign throughout the southern and eastern regions of the country long considered the heartlands of Yanukovych support in what is being portrayed as an ambitious bid to break through the partisan regionalism dividing the Ukrainian electorate.
Region ready for change?
This deliberate focus on Party of Regions’ voters has seen Yulia Tymoshenko appear in over 50 towns and cities across the region during the first three weeks of the campaign in a whirlwind tour which drew huge crowds and allowed the iconic opposition leader to speak at as many as seven or eight meetings a day. Herself a native of the largely Russian-speaking south-eastern industrial city of Dnipropetrovsk, Tymoshenko is perhaps the best placed of all the country’s Orange politicians to make inroads into areas of the country traditionally suspicious of Ukrainian nationalism. After years of entrenched voting patterns across the region, Tymoshenko now sees room for a significant swing in support throughout south-eastern Ukraine in her favour and has focused her bloc’s campaign accordingly.
“After a year and a half of the current Yanukovych government, there are significant numbers of voters in eastern and southern Ukraine who are disappointed, which is why we are focusing two- thirds of our entire campaign time in the region,” Tymoshenko told Business Ukraine.
The BYUT leader feels that the time is right to win over what was previously perceived as a partisan Regions bloc vote, arguing: “It’s true to say that over 30% of people [in the South and East] feel nostalgic for Soviet times and what it offered. They believe that the Party of Regions can bring those things back, but what these people really need are a decent standard of living and fair government. They are simply looking for stability and comfort. It’s unfortunate that for 16 years the country has not been able to provide them these things. Our political force will try to meet that challenge.”
Tymoshenko is far removed from existing stereotypes of Ukrainian patriots and has never courted the more militant nationalist vote in west Ukraine, making her more palatable to voters who are prone to equating staunchly nationalistic ideas with fascism. She believes that the ideological barriers which the Orange Revolution served to highlight no longer pose an insurmountable barrier to her eastern crusade. “More and more people now realise that the Party of Regions doesn’t stand for love of the Russian people or for Soviet values. It represents a love for resources and state assets,” she says. “I believe that this time round the vote will differ greatly from the 2006 results. In Kharkiv I even heard people say that the Party of Regions would be ready to speak Mongolian in order to preserve their assets and questionably acquired capital.”
Counting on charisma
The Tymoshenko factor is the central pillar of BYUT’s eastern campaign, with organisers counting on the winning effect of personal appearances from the bloc’s firebrand leader. “Mass rallies where we can interact with the general population remain the key point, or basis, of our election campaign. It is very important to deliver our message directly to the people,” explains Oleksander Sochka, head of the BYUT press service, who notes that whereas the national Ukrainian press is now largely impartial and even-handed in its coverage of the election campaign, local media outlets often remain the mouthpieces of their regional paymasters. This has had the effect of making media campaigning in the regions problematic but has also served to increase interest in Tymoshenko’s more personal approach.
Until the votes are counted on September 30, it will remain difficult to gauge just how successful this strategy has been in winning over new supporters, but Tymoshenko’s tour of the region has undoubtedly managed to draw big crowds. Party officials cite a record attendance of 55,000 in the eastern capital Kharkiv, and claim that a further 20,000 attended in the southern port city of Kherson, despite heavy rain throughout the rally.
These ambitious figures cannot be confirmed, but offer some insight into the pull of the opposition leader’s personal appearances. Anatoliy Boyko, a representative of the Voters’ Committee of Ukraine for Odessa region, witnessed a recent BYUT rally in Odessa and reflects: “I couldn’t put an exact number on the size of the crowd but I saw a lot of people coming out of the stadium where she was speaking.”
However, Serhiy Tkachenko, a representative of the same voter committee for the Donetsk region, came away with a different impression from the BYUT leader’s recent well-publicised visit to Yanukovych’s home base, where she visited party activists who claimed to have been beaten up for their political affiliations. “I felt that she came here more in order to secure some positive PR on the national level than to meet the local population,” he says, adding that the Donetsk region as a whole remains staunchly loyal to the Party of Regions. “It’s impossible to change this situation in one single campaign,” he adds.
Signs of waning dogmatism
The Tymoshenko Bloc’s efforts to win over Regions voters may benefit from a thaw in the political divide, according to analysts. “People have stopped viewing everything in terms of black and white,” Tkachenko says, suggesting that widespread disappointment in the country’s political leadership has reduced the tendency to hold categorically to political beliefs. This disillusionment, he thinks, has effectively made voters more open to new ideas and new hopes.
Oleksiy Holubutskiy, the deputy director of the Situational Models analytical agency, has been monitoring voter trends in Kharkiv region and estimates that Tymoshenko’s rating has risen by 7% to 20%. In the parliamentary elections of 2006 she received just 12.7% in Kharkiv oblast. He sees the bloc’s evolving image as a key factor in the rise of its voter appeal in areas where anti-Orange sentiment remains strong.
“BYUT has ceased to be perceived as simply an Orange party. This is not only a matter of different logos, but also a result of attempts to address a broader electorate directly and reach out beyond the middle classes,” he comments. Holubutskiy states that the number of potential BYUT supporters could be even higher than current estimates suggest, but concedes that accurate forecasts remain impossible. “Some people are still afraid of expressing their positions,” he explains.
Research carried out by TNS Ukraine for Focus magazine in Kharkiv oblast supports this theory while demonstrating that the figures involved can vary significantly. Their analyses also found a surge in support for Tymoshenko, putting her current rate at 15.6% following her visit to the city. This coincided with a drop in support for both the Party of Regions and the Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defence Bloc, which Tymoshenko has committed herself to allying with to form a renewed Orange coalition in the event of an election victory.
Rising culture of political pluralism
Unlike during previous Ukrainian election campaigns, BYUT press secretary Sochka states that the bloc has met only relatively minor incidences of official opposition throughout their regional tour above and beyond isolated spoiling tactics and the dissemination of negative campaign materials. “In Kharkiv we uncovered leaflets featuring portraits of Lutsenko and Tymoshenko and the slogan, ‘Get away from here, Kushnaryov’s murderers!’” Sochka relates. (Yevgeniy Kushnaryov was a Party of Regions member and former Kharkiv governor well known for his outspoken anti-Orange Revolution views who died in 2006 following a hunting accident).
Individual activists have also been victims of intimidation and physical assault, while campaign posters have been vandalised or removed, but pundits analysing the Tymoshenko campaign say there has been a sharp decline in the systematic abuses that were commonplace in previous years. BYUT officials say they did not meet with any major difficulties when dealing with state officials in even the most hostile regions, and outside of the Donbass proper many local officials have received the Tymoshenko bandwagon with relative enthusiasm. According to Odessa analyst Anatoliy Boyko, when Tymoshenko came to Izmail in Odessa oblast she was invited to make a speech to the assembled public to mark the city’s annual holiday, while in Odessa the opposition leader was allowed to appear unhindered at a local stadium.
Analysts suggest that this encouraging reception can be attributed to the fact that Tymoshenko has become a focus for regional authorities who have fallen out with the Yanukovych government. Mykhaylo Pohrebinskiy, the director of the Kyiv Political Research and Conflictology Centre, agrees, saying that Tymoshenko has managed to mobilise the support of existing local opposition to the central government.
Nevertheless, the most significant sign of approval comes from the country’s ruling oligarch elite, and Tymoshenko’s ties to big business have acted as a significant stepping stone towards bolstering support in the heavily industrialised east. Holubitskiy identifies BYUT’s significant popularity in the Donetsk oblast town of Alchevsk and argues that this is directly connected to the support she enjoys from the power brokers of the Industrial Union of the Donbass. “They support Tymoshenko here because they don’t want to put all their eggs in one basket,” he explains.
No substitute for hard work
Beyond all the big business ties and the support generated by dissatisfaction with the current government, Kyiv analyst Pohrebinskiy attributes Tymoshenko’s rising ratings to her work ethic, arguing, “She simply organises and conducts all her election campaigns more actively than other politicians.”
Meetings have been both frequent and memorable, accompanied by a huge array of merchandise, witty slogans, guest appearances from Ukrainian celebrity supporters and lavish firework shows.
The effect has been tangible. Boyko recalls that even in traditionally apolitical Odessa, her arrival made an immediate impact. “Following her visit the bloc’s symbols started appearing for sale around town. If a campaign is as active as her’s, it should definitely bring results,” he says.
The chances of a south-eastern swing
Most analysts agree that success in the south and east offers Tymoshenko the only realistic chance of improving on her showing in the 2006 elections given the strong showing she already enjoys in central and western Ukraine as well as the tough opposition she will encounter there from the Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defence Bloc. Rather than risk cannibalising their own Orange vote in the centre or west, Yulia’s only realistic chance of making a decisive electoral breakthrough lies in her audacious assault on the Yanukovych constituencies. “BYUT can only win the extra votes it needs in these regions,” Holubitskiy argues.
Most experts identify former Socialist Party voters alienated by the defection of party leader Oleksandr Moroz and those disappointed with the Yanukovych government as the most likely sources of new votes.
The end result of all those potential swing voters could well prove decisive. Valeriy Khmelko, the president of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, has compared opinion polls for the period three weeks prior to voting day for the current election and the 2006 ballot. “In the eastern regions in 2006 at this stage BYUT had around 3% support. That figure is now about 6%. In southern Ukraine support was less than 7% in 2006, and today it stands at more than 13%.”
Expert opinion remains divided, but among all the public polls currently in circulation the general consensus is that BYUT can expect to increase its national vote by 3% to 4%. In March 2006, Tymoshenko’s bloc received 22.3% overall, but if this increase materialises it could be enough to place Tymoshenko in the driving seat ahead of possible government coalition talks. However, in 2006 Ukraine’s pollsters unanimously underestimated the appeal of the Tymoshenko Bloc, estimating that she would pull between 10% and 15%, only to be surprised by the bloc’s strong performance, so there remains the possibility that the high ratings figures we are now being fed are the product of a desire to over-compensate for the failures of 2006.
