"Opposition Bloc" ceases to exist: two new parties will be formed

“Opposition Bloc” is dissolving: two new parties will be formed

“Opposition Bloc” is dissolving. There will be two new parties.

A source from the party’s leadership, the “Opposition Bloc” party, said that a final decision has already been made to split the political project between the two groups of its main beneficiaries.

On the one hand – Sergei Lvovochkin, Dmytro Firtash, and Yuri Boyko; on the other – Rinat Akhmetov and his team. The oligarchs were unable to reach a compromise and decided to part ways for good. Each will play his own ball, and accordingly two new political forces will be created.

The split will be roughly even – just as the list of this party was formed two groups of its co-founders for the last parliamentary elections. Each of the new political formations will include about twenty current deputies from “Oppoblok.” Probably the party based on Akhmetov’s group will have slightly more people.

The split had been brewing for a long time, because the wealthiest man in the country Rinat Akhmetov has his own views on the country’s situation that do not align with Lvovochkin’s and Firtash’s, whom the current political arrangement in the Verkhovna Rada clearly does not suit.

Indeed, the formation of “Opposition Bloc” was a political marriage with a plan. Akhmetov and Lvovochkin have long had difficult relations. In the era of President Yanukovych they competed for influence in the country. After the Revolution of Dignity, the situational union was a forced step by both sides. A survival instinct worked. Only in this way could they maintain influence on parliamentary processes at least partially.

At some moment the split became inevitable as well: two new parties will be formed.

One of them will be led by Yuri Boyko, but in fact the technical co-chair will be Sergei Lvovochkin. Whether Sergei Vladimirovich will be completely in the shadows, where he is most comfortable, depends on the circumstances. How seriously Firtash will influence things is a rhetorical question, as, according to our information, he already has a chamber prepared for him in an American prison in the state of Arkansas.

Likely, Firtash will become the “Lazarus-2” in modern Ukrainian history. The arsenal of this group includes a powerful media resource – the TV channel “Inter.” But what will happen to “Inter” is also an open question.

One thing is certain: the current curator of the channel’s information policy, a citizen of the Russian Federation, Ihor Shuvahalov, will be the key political technologist of this project, if he can freely stay on Ukrainian soil. Shuvahalov previously, who has been working in our country since the presidential elections 1999, held Ukrainian citizenship but lost it by decree of then-President Viktor Yushchenko in 2005.

Also, techniques for the new Lvovochkin project will be handled by his longtime associate Andriy YerMOlaev. The working name for the party is the Party of Ukraine’s Development. Lvovochkin had earlier attempted to promote a party with that name (de jure it still exists and is controlled by him) led by Yuriy Miroshnichenko and Serhiy Larín in 2014. Both are current deputies from “Oppoblok” and will certainly join the new project of their long-time patron. By the way, Larín worked as Lvovochkin’s deputy when he headed the President’s Administration under Yanukovych.

The other party will be led by Vadym Novinsky, owner of 25% of the country’s largest metallurgical holding “Metinvest,” 75% of whose shares belong to Rinath Akhmetov. It’s clear that Akhmetov himself will be in the shadows and not publicly promote the new party. But it’s equally clear that Rinat Leonidovich will be an authority #1 for this team, and no strategic decision will be made without his knowledge and agreement. Akhmetov’s arsenal includes the country’s largest capital, a number of powerful media resources, hundreds of thousands of employees in his enterprises, etc.

Regarding the public leader of the new Akhmetov-Novinsky party, despite Alexander Vilkul’s ambitions, it will be led by Vadym Novinsky.

A Orthodox oligarch who has become more active in the media space after the Prosecutor General’s Office sought permission to prosecute him, has, in several interviews, stressed that he did not intend to become actively involved in the information space. And probably he is sincere in this. At least from the summer 2013, when Vadym Vladyslavovych became a deputy in the by-election for Sevastopol, until the summer 2016, he did not show much public activity. But the Prosecutor General’s Office case forced Novinsky to change his lifestyle. Moreover, he had an alternative – to quit parliamentary activity and not appear on Ukrainian territory until better times. More than that, the main residence of the former Russian citizen Vadym Novinsky during his time as a deputy in the Verkhovna Rada remained Saint Petersburg, where his family constantly lives. He also has real estate in other countries, including a villa on the sunny island of Sardinia in Italy.

But he chose another path and went all in, filing charges against him by the General Prosecutor as political repression and persecution not only of him personally but of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, with which the oligarch has formed a special relationship. After fleeing to Russia in 2014, oligarch Viktor Nusenko’s Novinsky remained the strongest sponsor of the UOC MP, helped elect a metropolitan close to him as head of this church. According to witnesses, today Vadym Novinsky has the greatest influence on UOC MP processes, although he is a layman, he studies at a theological seminary and serves as a monastery bell-ringer.

In the context of the new political project, it is clear that the Orthodox oligarch will use every opportunity of the prosecution case to present himself as a “martyr-sufferer,” the “main opposition to the regime of Poroshenko.” Moreover, Novinsky, together with Akhmetov, has already decided that Vadym Vladyslavovych will run for president in the next elections. Obviously, he has little real chance of winning. But his chances to win a significant portion of the pro-regional electorate’s sympathy are high. Note that the public leader of the other group, Yuri Boyko, will also run for president, which is well known.

The new political forces will have the same social slogans, appeal to the same voter segment, and likely will share programs and media rhetoric. The only possible difference is that the party led by Novinsky will probably emphasize Orthodox values more, given its public leader’s background. The “twist” here is that Akhmetov is a Muslim.

However, in the two new parties based on the “Opposition Bloc,” there will be diametrically opposite positions on the issue of early parliamentary elections and the country’s near future in general. This is what ultimately prompted the split.

Akhmetov-Novinsky’s party will aim to maintain a constantly friendly dialogue with the Presidential Administration, will not swing toward early elections, and may opportunistically support the pro-government coalition when it lacks votes to push a given issue in the Verkhovna Rada. In the coalition, such problems are, as is known, constant.

The Lvovochkin-Firtash-Boyko party, in contrast, will closely cooperate with Yulia Tymoshenko’s “Bat’kivshchyna.” In fact, this process has long begun and is coordinated by Viktor Medvedchuk’s godson. The goal is to force early parliamentary elections at any cost. It’s clear that Tymoshenko denies and will continue to deny any cooperation with Lvovochkin (who, by the way, in 2011 was one of those who initiated her arrest) so as not to incur electoral losses in Central and Western Ukraine.

Nevertheless, the synchrony of actions and the similarity of rhetoric are obvious. And the frequent appearances of Yulia Volodymyrivna on the Inter channel are a clear confirmation. As is the public defense of this channel by Tymoshenko when right-wing organizations and volunteers conducted various protests demanding a ban on Inter’s broadcasts.

Regarding the legal side of the “marriage dissolution.” Likely, some deputies – one group who were elected from the “Oppoblok” list – will be expelled from the faction with their consent so they do not risk losing their mandates. Majoritarian MPs who want to join this group will leave the faction themselves – the Damocles sword of losing a mandate does not hang over them. That is the peculiarity of current law. Then – majoritarian MPs who left the faction, and list MPs who were expelled, form a new group in parliament under the mechanism by which groups “People’s Will” and “Revival” were formed in this convocation.

Those who remain will rename the faction (more precisely, what remains of it) to the name of their new party. Another possible scenario is the self-dissolution of the “Opposition Bloc” faction and the creation of two legally new groups in parliament.

On personnel. It is known that, in addition to Novinsky and Vilkul, the Akhmetov group will include: Tetiana Bakhtaeva, Yuriy Voropaev (coordinated Akhmetov’s deputies inside the “Oppoblok” faction), Natalia Korolevska, Oleksandr Dolzhenkov, Oleksii Bilyi, Ihor Shurma (the son Rostyslav of whom runs one of Akhmetov’s enterprises), Dmytro Shpenov, Yuriy Solod (Korolevska’s husband), Serhii Sazhko, Oleksandr Nechayev, Yuriy Moroko, Andriy Kiseliov, Dmytro Kolesnikov, Yukim Zvyahilskyi and brothers Dmytro and Mykhailo Dobkin.

In turn, members of the Lvovochkin group, besides himself, Boyko, Larín and Miroshnichenko, will include: Yevhen Bakulin, Serhiy Dunayev (Boyko’s son-in-law), Yuliy Ioffe, Ivan Mirnyi, Vasyl Nimchenko (close to Viktor Medvedchuk), Yuriy Pavlenko, Mykhailo Papiev and, of course, Lvovochkin’s sister Yuliya.

Particularly noteworthy is the transfer to Lvovochkin’s party of deputy Nestor Shufrych, who had quite a difficult relationship with him. In the 2009-milieu, a conflict between current allies escalated into a fight when Shufrych punched Lvovochkin in the face.

Sharf-spryazhyvshy in his statements and actions, Shufrych ran afoul of a fight in this convocation of the parliament when, after insulting words toward Oleh Liashko, Shufrych himself received a punch in the face from Radical Party deputy Ihor Mosiychuk. Shufrych’s presence in the Lvovochkin project is dictated by his long-standing friendship and coordination with Viktor Medvedchuk. Incidentally, Viktor Medvedchuk himself, then head of the President’s Administration, clashed with Lvovochkin. Whether it came to a fight then is not known.

Currently, however, Medvedchuk and Lvovochkin have excellent relations and full cooperation.

To the pleasure of the Kremlin’s coordinators.

Nastya Kovalevich for INFORMATOR