Only Tymoshenko Can Stop Yanukovych

By Taras Kuzio

The answer to the title of David Marples op ed (The New Pathway, Issue 36, September 17, 2009) “Can anyone stop Yanukovych from being elected the next president of Ukraine” is: ‘Yes, there is. It is Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’.  Only she can halt the Donetsk clan’s victory in the election just as only Viktor Yushchenko could five years earlier.

The combined vote of candidates from the former Orange Camp, of whom Tymoshenko is by far the strongest candidate, receive approximately 45-50 percent of the vote in opinion polls. Meanwhile, Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych and Communist Party leader Piotr Symonenko together receive 35-40 percent. 

Where is Yanukovych going to obtain an additional ten percent to come first in the second round?

A week is a long time in Ukrainian politics while three months is an eternity. Ukraine’s election campaign only begins this month (in October) and there will be countless more opinion polls and exit polls before election day. These are very likely to show increased support for Tymoshenko after the election campaign begins. Let us recall how in 2004 then Prime Minister Yanukovych increased his support throughout the campaign.

Another factor which polls have always done prior to elections is to downplay Tymoshenko’s support. In all three last parliamentary elections, pre-election day polls grossly under-estimated support for the Tymoshenko bloc (BYuT) by a wide margin. In the 2007 pre-term elections, polls predicted BYuT would receive 20 percent and it actually received ten percent more. 

A poll by six leading sociological organizations cited by Ukrayinska Pravda (August 11) asked who voters had backed in the 2007 elections. While the results for the Party of Regions and Our Ukraine-Peoples Self Defence largely reflected their actual vote that for BYuT was 10 percent less than what they received.

Marples' analysis of Ukrainian politics ignores four important factors in his evident endorsement of a Yanukovych victory.

Firstly, he ignores the fact that out of the leading candidates only Tymoshenko has charisma. Tymoshenko, as Western journalists will always advise you in Kyiv, should never be underestimated. She is, after all, Ukraine’s best election campaigner and one that has the best political machine in Ukraine.

Secondly, polls show that Tymoshenko has maintained her support in, and dominance of, the crucial swing region of Central Ukraine. Central Ukraine decided the outcome of the 1994 and 2004 Presidential Elections when it voted for Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yushchenko respectively.

Polls also show that Tymoshenko retains some support in Eastern and Southern Ukraine. In the 2007 elections, the Tymoshenko bloc (BYuT) became the only orange political force to attract support in Russian-speaking Ukraine.

Thirdly, with Eastern and Central Ukraine dominated by Yanukovych and Tymoshenko respectively, Western Ukraine is set to become the main battleground of the 2010 elections. Tymoshenko currently leads throughout Western Ukraine except for the three Galician oblasts where Arseniy Yatseniuk is in the lead. Tymoshenko will be able to replace Yatseniuk as the most popular candidate in Galicia over the course of the campaign.

Fourthly, economics have never played any role in influencing the outcome of Ukrainian elections. In 2004, Ukraine had its best rate of economic growth for decades and yet the incumbent prime minister (Yanukovych) lost the elections. Tymoshenko’s campaign slogan portraying her as a strong leader dealing with the economic crisis, while other politicians quarrel and attempt to undermine her, could have a positive influence on voters.

Marples’ attempt to downplay the significance of Yanukovych’s election victory by pointing to misplaced fears about Kuchma in 1994 does not grasp the changes in Ukraine over the last fifteen years.  Ukraine in 1994 and 2010 are two very different countries: in 1994 there were no organized pro-Russian political forces in Eastern Ukraine aside from the Communists (non-communist centrist parties only began to be formed in 1997-2001). 

The Party of Regions is the most pro-Russian of the so-called centrist parties that emerged from the Kuchma era.  This is evident in many areas: its support for separatism in Georgia, its support for extending the Black Sea Fleet agreement beyond 2017, its support for Russian to become a state language, its disinterest in seeking EU membership (the Party of Regions has never, unlike BYuT and Our Ukraine, sought membership of the European Parliament’s political groups) and its strong opposition to NATO membership. Yanukovych’s servility to the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) was evident to all during ROC Patriarch Kyrill’s ten-day tour of Ukraine this past July-August.

Marples’ op ed was written too early to predict the outcome of Ukraine’s presidential elections. The next three months will tell who of the two main candidates – Yanukovych and Tymoshenko – will be elected president. To suggest that it is a certainty – three months before election day on January 17, 2010 - that Yanukovych will be elected - is to ignore evidence from past elections and the everyday realities of Ukrainian politics.

Dr. Taras Kuzio is a Senior Fellow in the Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Toronto, Adjunct Research Professor at Carleton University (Ottawa) and editor of the bi-monthly Ukraine Analyst.