Back
Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
In one way or another, under shelling, the question arises: what will political life look like after the hot phase of the Russia–Ukraine war ends, which political players will remain in Ukrainian politics. Recall that the legal regime of martial law categorically prohibits holding any elections.
Let’s start with the five key parliamentary parties that will absorb regional political forces. “Zelensky’s Bloc,” which will be a center-right rebranding of the ruling party “Servant of the People,” presenting itself as a centrist political force and resembling an improved version of the banned/self-dissolved Euroskeptic party “Our Land.” Talk of rebranding “SN” began even before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. One reason is considered the toxicity of pro-government deputies who continue to get into scandals. But the real reason lies in other factors. The key one is defeat in the local elections, despite the lead after All-Ukrainian Union “Fatherland.” The party for which Volodymyr Zelensky personally campaigned failed to win a mayoralty in any regional center. Instead, the party has many mayors of district centers of Ukraine. It can boast victories in the regional councils of Zhytomyr, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, and Chernivtsi. The problem is that “Servant of the People” remained a “turbo-mode” party that did not build up party branches after the snap parliamentary elections in July 21 2019. Because of this, regional elites chose the “SN” brand situationally, based on the residual positive rating of V. Zelensky, which was rapidly falling. After February 24 2022 the situation changed. Despite corruption scandals around the President of Ukraine, his ratings allow him to be elected to a second term and bring his party back into parliament. The party will consist of well-known servicemembers and volunteers such as Alina Mykhailova or Serhiy Prytula. Joining them will be those MPs from the single-party majority who have a more or less unblemished reputation and have remained loyal to V. Zelensky. The main opponent on the center-right flank for V. Zelensky remains his predecessor Petro Poroshenko, whose party “European Solidarity” clears the 5 percent threshold with 7–8 percent voter support. This resembles a closed loop that limits our choice. We are mentally held in 2019 year. On the center-left flank remain All-Ukrainian Union “Fatherland” with its eternal leader Yulia Tymoshenko, who can count on 5,5–6 percent of voters’ votes and to take the last fifth place in parliamentary elections. She successfully sticks to socio-economic themes, thereby retaining the elderly electorate. Her expected opponent will be V. Zelensky’s political technologist, the architect of “SN,” the “regional” former Verkhovna Rada speaker in 2019–2021 years Dmytro Razumkov. Despite his white-and-blue past, he clearly understands that occupying the niche of the banned pro-Russian vector is very risky, and the center-right niche is already occupied by V. Zelensky and P. Poroshenko. It is advantageous for D. Razumkov to remain in Y. Tymoshenko’s electoral field to try to intercept her electorate and party members. His allies will likely include former “regionals.” D. Razumkov is a very cunning, pragmatic, rational, and smart politician who has successfully adapted to the country’s military-political situation and knows what concerns the average Ukrainian today. We categorically do not campaign for support of D. Razumkov, who is already preparing for elections and will be a major player in the postwar era. It is important to warn voters that D. Razumkov is a prewar-era politician, and his political activity dates back to the heyday of the banned “Party of Regions,” which fell on 2004–2014 years.
The fifth and final party closing our pentagram will be an alternative pro-Russian force represented by figures from all the banned pro-Russian parties that existed in Ukraine before the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion in 2022. We are talking about the party of the oligarch-regionalist Borys Kolesnikov, who will try to develop the project “Ukraine — Our Home.” The party could become a magnet for voters of all parties that became successors of the “Party of Regions,” the Communist Party of Ukraine, and the party “Strong Ukraine.” Whether the party will enter the top three leaders only time will tell. It will be a stronghold of the Russian security services, who will use it as an instrument of political influence after a military defeat that would have been impossible without the heroic resistance of Ukraine’s defense forces. This political force’s personal patronage would interest the war criminal, dictator, and maniac Vladimir Putin. He never let Ukraine slip from his sphere of influence. What will happen to regional parties? Apart from the KMKS “Party of Hungarians of Ukraine” and the “Democratic Party of Hungarians of Ukraine,” which will retain their influence in Zakarpattia region, the minimal chance of survival belongs to two political forces. “Power of the People,” which has factions in district centers such as Kryvyi Rih and Obukhiv, and also the mayor of the city of Trostianets in Sumy region, Yuriy Bova, a member of the party’s political council. Everything depends on the activity of party structures and the leadership’s strategy for the next elections. Also, a slim chance for survival exists for the “People’s Movement of Ukraine,” which traces its origins back to 1989, but today is mostly represented in Lviv region. The Rukh held on to the figure of Ukrainian dissident Viacheslav Chornovil, who led the party from 1992 to 1999. There is a high likelihood that Rukh party members will be absorbed by “European Solidarity.” Summing up, we must say that Russia’s full-scale invasion has radically changed Ukraine’s political landscape. The era of multipartyism has finally ended in the country. In particular, this is connected to the growth of influence of the decision-making center, which today is the Office of the President, the National Security and Defense Council, and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. Elites are no longer interested in developing temporary political projects. They are interested in reliable large political players who will be represented in the legislative branch. Their entry into parliament will give them a chance to retain power in the regions. Small parties understand that their time has long passed, and the electoral field remains divided among several main players who in the future will become rivals in parliamentary and municipal elections.
Read FrAza on Google News (click "Subscribe")
Subscribe to FrAza channels on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Партійний п'ятикутник в Україні: політична реальність після скасування воєнного стану". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Fraza.
