Headless Ruling Party. What's Happening with BPP?

Headless Ruling Party. What's Happening with BPP?

The pro-presidential force has de facto been without a leader for more than a year: Klitschko abdicates, Hroisman distances himself.

Recently, the deputy head of the “BPP-Solidarity” faction, Ihor Kononenko, unexpectedly proposed amending the civil service law so that Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko could lead the party of the same name. Klitschko himself, after he submitted his resignation as party head last May, is unlikely eager to step into the same river twice and is not even thinking about reviving his own project, UDAR. But Kononenko’s statements reminded people that the president actually has his own party, which, by the way, does not include all members of the president’s faction in the Rada.

Formally Klitschko still remains party head until a new leader is elected. Photo: 112.ua

Hlavkom examined what BPP currently represents and whether we are dealing with another virtual project that will be revived only for the elections.

Formally Klitschko still remains party head until a new leader is elected. But the fact that the pro-presidential force has, de facto, been without a leader for more than a year is very telling. There are general problems with leadership personnel in BPP – it is enough to recall how long it took to elect a new faction head to replace Ihor Hryniv, eventually settling on the little-known Artur Herasymov. Yuriy Lutsenko, Iryna Herashchenko, and Ihor Hryniv were mentioned as candidates for party head.

A separate story is Volodymyr Hroisman, whom the president wanted to see as party head, but the prime minister declined, after which their relations sharply cooled. Hroisman can be understood: BPP is a one-hundred-percent presidential project and anyone who leads it will play a secondary role. In fact, that’s what happened with the faction after the charismatic Lutsenko left parliament. Volodymyr Borysovych, however, believes in his own star and has taken a wait-and-see position, unwilling to take on the burden of party leadership. Besides, BPP today is no longer the most popular brand. Still, BPP–Solidarity remains the party of power — not only with shortcomings but also with privileges for its members.

The president wanted Volodymyr Hroisman to be party head, but the prime minister refused, after which their relations sharply cooled.

Does history teach us anything?

Previous presidential parties in Ukraine ceased to exist practically as soon as their patron lost the presidential baton. Examples like ZaYedU, Our Ukraine, and the Party of Regions show what will happen to Solidarity once Poroshenko leaves the throne. And since parliamentary elections will occur after the presidential ones, all forces must be thrown into re-electing Petro Oleksiyovych. Under these conditions, party building does not seem to be a priority. Especially while negotiations between BPP and the People’s Front about creating a single party of power are ongoing.

The financial reports of Solidarity are very revealing. For example, in documents for one quarter of 2016 year it turned out that the party apparatus listed… only three people. And their payroll fund was seven times smaller than the fee paid for consultations to a single presidential speechwriter, Oleh Medvediev.

True, party-building then accelerated: in the second quarter of this year, for example, the party apparatus staff already numbered 35 people, the political force spent the largest share of budget financing – 22 million hryvnias, most of which (62%) was allocated to maintaining regional organizations.

“It was only after state funding appeared that the party developed at least some apparatus and at least minimally began to grow, although with a large regional variation,” says political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko. “In the People’s Front the situation is much worse in this regard – I think they deliberately are not developing the party because they expect either a merger with BPP or substantial rebranding. Of course, Poroshenko communicates more with the faction, and the party is rather an appendage to it. But the real fate of BPP will be decided after the presidential elections – if Poroshenko manages to win, changes will be minor, but if not, rebranding will be unavoidable. Maybe Poroshenko himself will head the party, trying to remain in politics and in parliament.”

BPP is a one-hundred-percent presidential project and anyone who leads it will play a secondary role. In fact, that’s what happened with the faction after the charismatic Lutsenko left parliament.

By the residual principle

Political technologist Andriy Zolotaryov believes the brands of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and the president himself are becoming increasingly toxic and receiving negative political capitalization. The expert notes, however, that 12–15% of Ukrainian voters are always ready to cooperate with any government, and the task of the current occupants of Bankova is to gather that power-loving electorate plus win as many single-member districts as possible (if the current electoral system is preserved). At the same time, Zolotaryov states that the presidential party project is in a state of permanent crisis.

“If until 2015 BPP was completely inactive, now there has been activation, but not radical,” the political technologist notes. “Serious party building is not underway; traditional technologies of ribbon-cuttings and public relations are being used. The problem is that all resources (bots, political technologists) are concentrated around the president, and the party gets what’s left. Obviously, governors and heads of regional councils controlled by BPP are tasked with developing the party’s structure, but for them it’s like a stop signal to a hare. In general, there is no defined strategy right now.”

Oleksiy Koshel, head of the Voters’ Committee who studies the activity of parliamentary parties, says these political projects often engage in activities that should not be typical for parties. Koshel calls such manifestations work in a post-Soviet format: the aforementioned ribbon-cuttings and functions of “improvement departments” (cleaning, painting, volunteer cleanup days). Obviously, the party of power has more of such “managerial” opportunities than others.

“This is all pre-election style work,” Koshel shrugs. “But there is almost no work discussing key legislative initiatives, strategic programs, or educational work on the decentralization reform. BPP needs serious work to strengthen its party activists – various political leadership schools and training for young party activists.”

The real fate of BPP will be decided after the presidential elections – if Poroshenko manages to win, changes will be minor, but if not, rebranding will be unavoidable.

In the hands of the “young team”

In the absence of a real party head, party development on the ground is being handled by the head of the Secretariat, People’s Deputy Maksym Savrasov. He told Hlavkom that the party currently has about 400 reception offices, whose staff are paid from state funding. Savrasov admits that party membership figures are modest (just over 30 thousand members), but notes these figures are steadily growing. There are no strict criteria for joining BPP – they accept anyone willing who was not previously a member of the Party of Regions. The piquant detail is that honorary chair of Solidarity, Petro Poroshenko, was himself one of the founders of the Party of Regions.

In 2000 year the Party of Regional Revival of Ukraine, the Party of Solidarity of Ukraine, the Labor Party, the All-Ukrainian Party of Pensioners, and the For a Beautiful Ukraine party merged into the Party of Regional Revival “Labor Solidarity of Ukraine,” co-chaired by the leaders of the merged parties: Volodymyr Rybak, Valentyn Landyk, Petro Poroshenko, Mykola Azarov, Yukhym Zvyahilsky, and Leonid Chernovetsky. In 2001 the party changed its name to the Party of Regions, whose head was elected Mykola Azarov.

A weekly party newspaper with a circulation of a million copies, a party Facebook page with 100 thousand followers — Savrasov lists means of communication with supporters. According to him, party contributions are not mandatory and amount to 20 hryvnias per month. Those who wish can pay more. For example, last year the largest donor was People’s Deputy Serhiy Alekseyev, who did not stint and gave 100 thousand hryvnias to his native party. Savrasov assures that state funding (112 million hryvnias this year) is enough for party development and expects next year the amount will increase because it is tied to the level of the minimum wage. Almost 70% of BPP’s state funding is spent on local territorial organizations. The Secretariat head plans to hold a large congress with the participation of the president this year and to close the issue of the party head by the end of the year.

Former Kyiv City Council deputy from Chernovetsky’s Bloc, Savrasov is a creature of another influential BPP deputy, Serhiy Berezenko, who has been entrusted at a higher level to oversee the party. “In fact, all these people from Chernovetsky’s ‘young team’ entered politics with one goal — what can I ‘get’ from this,” an interlocutor from the presidential faction shares. “Accordingly, teams on the ground are formed with that attitude.”

Oleksiy Koshel from the Voters’ Committee assures that serious party work in BPP is not being carried out today and cites a vote in the Zakarpattia regional council as an example. There, with the help of the BPP faction, an appeal demanding the veto of the education law was adopted, while the identically named faction in parliament had voted for that law. Such wavering clearly indicates a lack of dialogue between the central apparatus and local branches. However, the Voters’ Committee maintains that the presidential force makes little use of administrative resources. Although one can recall how governors promoted BPP candidates in the media during local elections, and former Odesa governor Mikheil Saakashvili personally came to Chernihiv to campaign for the same Berezenko in the parliamentary by-election. But there is no massive recruitment of budget employees into the party like in the era of the aforementioned Party of Regions, whose membership once exceeded one million. Nor is there the influence the Regionals once had.

The Petro Poroshenko Bloc in 2014 was created literally “on the knee,” because the president could not do without his own party. And since then, it seems, the head of state, preoccupied with other matters, still has not decided what to do next with this eponymous project.

Pavlo Vuyets, Hlavkom