How Timashenko’s campaign headquarters will work during the election

How Timashenko’s campaign headquarters will work during the election

One of Yulia Tymoshenko’s main problems in the presidential race is the “shipped Cossacks” from the main opponent. But even if Tymoshenko loses the presidential race, her chances in the snap parliamentary elections will be decent.

In the pace of pre-election organizational work, Yulia Tymoshenko already lags behind Petro Poroshenko. Poroshenko’s central headquarters last week held an official presentation of the leaders who will be responsible for achieving a successful result for the candidate in the regions (however, a number of controversial figures who have tainted themselves by collaborating with the previous regime are not among the leaders of local headquarters, although, according to de facto sources, they will oversee campaigns in certain regions). But in “Batkivshchyna” this preliminary stage of headquarters work is not yet completed — the on-the-ground organizational structure is still being formed.

The central Tymoshenko headquarters for these elections is headed by the renowned political scientist Igor Dzdanov, who has long cooperated with her political force and was left without a post in the current government only due to behind-the-scenes power struggle. His deputy for media affairs became MP Alexander Abdulilin, and another deputy is his colleague from the faction Elena Ledovskih, who received a deputy mandate two weeks ago.

According to residents of the party office of the white-and-scarlet on Turovska Street, there is no vigorous work there yet. “It feels like it’s July outside, and there are no elections planned. Who will do what is also unclear,” says one former program manager who stopped by to visit former colleagues at a drop-in.

Several sources named the reason for the apparent inactivity — in reality, the campaign leadership is in the hands of invited Russian political technologists led by Aleksei Sitnikov. Sitnikov is a very well-known figure in narrow circles. His track record includes the very tough but successful presidential campaign of Boris Yeltsin in 1996 year. Sitnikov also collaborated with Tymoshenko and “Batkivshchyna” on parliamentary elections in 2007 and presidential elections 2010 — it is he who is considered the creator of the famous “Tymoshenko’s braid.” As veteran headquarters insiders explain, before Sitnikov and his team worked completely autonomously — they sat in separate offices on Turovska and did not participate in general meetings. Now Sitnikov and his team are not seen there — they reportedly rented a separate office somewhere in Pechersk.

Local Tymoshenko headquarters will be organized in a very original way. There may be no regional headquarters at all; instead, the entire territory of Ukraine will be divided into 430 mini-headquarters. Each of the 225 single-member constituencies will be divided into two roughly equal “semi-circuits” by voter count (that is, there would be 450 headquarters, but Crimea with its 10 constituencies is annexed by Russia). The author of this idea, Tymoshenko’s interlocutors at Batkivshchyna say, is Yulia Tymoshenko herself. Under her plan, one of the two headquarters in each district will be led by the head of the local party cell, and the other by the local single-member deputy from Batkivshchyna, or, in the absence of such, another local party functionary or even a local “opinion leader.”

With each of the mini-heads, Tymoshenko will sign an agreement — if he can deliver a better result than the opponent in his district, he will later have the right to become a candidate from Batkivshchyna for the Supreme Rada elections or the local council, or a worthy place on the party list, or a position in the executive branch — as desired. In Tymoshenko’s view, this will stimulate healthy internal competition within the headquarters.

Experienced party members have said that this approach has already been tested, in particular in 2006 year, when well-performing functionaries in parliamentary elections received respectable posts in local government or self-government.

Something similar Tymoshenko attempted to organize in the elections of 2010, but this time it did not work. The power ended up in the hands of Viktor Yanukovych, and Tymoshenko could not influence appointments at all. Many deputies responsible for specific regions defected to Yanukovych along with their party cells — thus, there was no correlation between election results and career advancement of local operatives. Something similar may happen this year — in the event of a defeat, Tymoshenko will not be able to distribute posts, and in the Rada, including deputies from her faction, a new pro-presidential coalition will surely be formed.

In addition, the campaign managers were allegedly set targets that are clearly inflated — otherwise, they would have to forget about posts and places. In the first round, the territories under their control should show a result no worse than Batkivshchyna’s in 2012, and in the second round — no worse than Tymoshenko herself in 2010. If the first task looks somewhat feasible, at least in certain regions, the second is inherently unlikely. For example, in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast Tymoshenko in 2010-om received almost 89% of the vote in the second round — unsurprising, since her opponent was Viktor Yanukovych, who was broadly unacceptable in Galicia. Now, with a huge likelihood, Poroshenko will be in his place, who is favored by nearly half of the voters there (44,7% support for the macro-region “West,” joint poll by Razumkov Center, SOCIS, CMIS, Rating group from 14-19 March).

Another problem for Tymoshenko’s campaign teams is internal conflict of interest. For example, in one of the key electoral territories, Kyiv, there will effectively be parallel headquarters structures. The district headquarters will be led by the head of the local Batkivshchyna, but the territory will also be supervised by a local single-member deputy from Batkivshchyna (among the latter there are nonpartisans, and the borders of the single-member constituencies do not coincide with the borders of the city districts).

The weekend before last, Kyiv single-member deputies met separately with Tymoshenko and tried to explain to her the infeasibility of such an approach. “She promised to sort it out within three days, but almost two weeks have passed and there’s no result,” says one of the participants to Focus.ua. The former prime minister, after a recovery in Germany, is now touring the regions, paying significant attention to small towns — where her campaign believes the largest number of potential voters are concentrated.

But the former prime minister has urgent matters in Kyiv as well. In particular, a whole row of deputies from her faction effectively work for her direct rival, Petro Poroshenko. Some openly, like Gennady Zubko, who officially heads the owner of “Roshen” campaign in Zhytomyr region or Vladimir Aryev — in Kyiv. Some unofficially, like several of the aforementioned Kyiv single-member deputies. It has long been no secret in the corridors that during the last parliamentary campaign Poroshenko helped them (back then, his ambitions limited to becoming mayor of the capital, and he was preparing the corresponding base of support). The Batkivshchyna faction recognizes the problem, but seems not ready for radical purification steps. “I believe that those who work for Poroshenko have enough moral qualities and honesty to leave our faction,” said Focus.ua interim head of Kyiv city organization Batkivshchyna Andriy Pavlovskyi.

Some deputies from the white-scarlet team have doubts about the loyalty of even the central Tymoshenko headquarters. For example, the aforementioned Elena Ledovskih is the long-time right hand of MP Mykola Martynenko. “Martynenko is one of her ‘favorite friends.’ And ‘favorite friends’, as recent ten years show, rarely stay former,” laments one member of Tymoshenko’s so-called “old guard” to Focus.ua. He then adds: if Tymoshenko loses the presidential election, her chances in the snap parliamentary elections will be decent. After all, Tymoshenko will start from the familiar niche — uncompromising opposition.

Milan Lelic, Focus