Ukrainian Election Brings a New Era of Same Political Deadlock

Posted on October 4th, 2007 Daniel Adams 1 comment  Print This Post

The vote count is finally coming to a close for Ukraine’s parliamentary elections. The results were tighter than expected. The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc performed surprisingly well when compared to public opinion polls prior to the vote. With 99.93 percent of the regions reporting, RFE/RL reports the breakdown as follows:

the Party of Regions obtained 34.35 percent of the vote (175 mandates), the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc 30.73 percent (156 mandates), the Our Ukraine-People’s-Self-Defense bloc 14.16 percent (72 mandates), the Communist Party 5.38 percent (27 mandates), the Lytvyn Bloc 3.96 percent (20 mandates), and the Socialist Party 2.86 percent (no mandate).

If these results stand, the work of cobbling together a ruling coalition begins. The two parties of the “Orange Revolution” – the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (YTB) and Our Ukraine-People’s-Self-Defense bloc (Yushchenko) – hold enough seats to form a coalition and elect a prime minister. However, the cooperation of these two groups flamed out shortly after the Orange Revolution, degenerating to accusations of corruption and the dissolution of parliament. This breakdown lead to a new round of elections that empowered Yanukovych, eventually resulting in a defection of the Socialist Party from the Orange Revolution coalition and the election of Yanukovych as Prime Minister.

As noted in the RFE/RL, divergent views of the formation of a new coalition may already be emerging. President Yushenko has suggested, somewhat passively, of forming a grand coalition between Our Ukraine, YTB, and the Party of Regions. Yulia Tymoshenko has ruled this out, stating that the YTB would not form any government with the Party of Regions (Yanukovych) and would act as opposition if such a coalition was formed.

I can potentially see the appeal to Yushchenko of attempting to broaden the government, but I doubt this will occur. Yushchenko’s presidency has been riddled with political deadlock with the prime ministers, first held by his ally Yulia Tymoshenko and then his nemesis Yanukovych. While governing with a bare majority may not make life easy for Yushenko, giving his opponents significant position in government is unlikely to improve the governing.

Yushchenko may be attempting to form what would amount to a national unity coalition in order to improve his own standing in the Ukrainian public. A huge problem for Yushchenko is his declining popularity. Much of the blame for the stagnant political system and repeated elections have fallen on him. The next presidential elections are scheduled for 2009, and Tymoshenko and Yanukovych are both emerging as potential contenders. By fostering a national unity coalition, Yushchenko may be seeking to develop an image as a uniter in a country plagued with political stalemate. However, I think that this will fail miserably.

Fruits and Votes has been following the developments as the votes have been counted, and Neeka’s Backlog, who lives in Ukraine, has some interesting coverage of the past campaign season and the election atmosphere on the ground in Kiev.