Leonid
Kravchuk
Leonid Kuchma
Natalya Vitrenko
Petro Symonenko
Oleksandr Tkachenko
Oleksandr Moroz
Yuriy Kostenko
Yevhen Marchuk
The presidential
elections, third after Ukraine gained independence, will be held at the
end of October, 1999. Leonid Kravchuk, the first Ukrainian president
elected in a general election, found himself head of state at a very difficult
time. The gigantic monster, also known as the USSR, remained dangerous
even in its senility which lasted for several dramatic years - a nuclear
superpower with ruined economy, run-away inflation, impoverished population,
hopelessly ineffective political system, millions upon millions of people
brought up on the ideals of the communist regime and finding themselves
completely disoriented under the new, immensely complicated and controversial
conditions of rapid change. The attitudes of the Ukrainians towards the
former president Kravchuk differ and range from praise to condemnation.
And they have a lot to say both for and against Kravchuk. But personal
emotions aside, president Kravchuk did achieve something that even his
detractors would have to acknowledge: Ukraine is one of the few post-Soviet
countries where no internal fratricidal conflict erupted, where no coups
happened, where no soldiers were killed in street fighting, where no tanks
were sent to deal with insurgents. In the annals of Ukraine's history
"the cunning fox" (the nickname that Kravchuk himself does not seem to
mind) will be entered as a president who stayed staunchly at the helm
in the worst of storms.
Leonid Kuchma, Kravchuk's successor as president, was not, unlike
his predecessor, a professional politician. Before coming into the politics,
he was director of the YUZHMASH plant, a huge rocket-making facility in
the city of Dnipropetrovsk. Kuchma has both a lot of supporters and a
lot of antagonists. His chances of becoming president for the second term
are estimated to be high enough, all the more so that a number of rather
influential political parties and public associations have already come
out in support of the incumbent president. Among the presidential candidates
one finds leftists, rightists and centrists. Some of them are seasoned
politicians, others are "dark horses." Estimations of their chances to
attain presidency differ but each of the candidates, quite aside from
his or her political affiliations, is definitely an interesting personality.
We'll begin our brief descriptions of the candidates starting with the
ultra-leftists and proceeding through the political spectrum from left
to right.
Natalya Vitrenko, a member of parliament, is the leader of the
Progressive Socialist Party, the most radically leftist party of Ukraine.
She is for going back to the "classical" Soviet-type economic, political
and social set-up. Not once, but many times in her speeches and addresses
she called for restoration of the Soviet Union. Professor Vitrenko holds
a Ph.D. in economics. She is known for her fiery rhetoric and hot temperament.
Once she was nicknamed "a witch from Konotop" and she often refers to
herself, not without coquetry, by this nickname (an explanation is probably
needed here: Mrs Vitrenko hails from the town of Konotop, and a once popular
nineteenth century novel by H. Kvitka-Osnov'yanenko is titled: The
Witch of Konotop).
Petro Symonenko, an MP, is the leader of the Communist Party of
Ukraine. Way back in the Soviet times, he was a communist-party functionary.
His programme is basically close to that one of Vitrenko but the communists
have more seats in parliament and a wider social base than Vitrenko's
Progressive Socialists.
Oleksandr Tkachenko worked formerly in agriculture, then became
a minister and at present he is the Head of the Presidium (speaker) of
the Verkhovna Rada (parliament). Mr Tkachenko is an ardent adherent
of the idea of integration of the "Slavic" (Russia, Belarus and Ukraine)
nations of the former Soviet Union. He believes Ukraine should join a
Russian-Belorussian-Serbian union (what Serbia has to do with that, one
may wonder). But even Belorussian president Lukashenko, the main initiator
and promoter of this unlikely union, has recently grown somewhat skeptical
as far as the idea of such a union is concerned. Mr Tkachenko enjoys support
mostly among pro-communist peasants united in the Agrarian Party, and
also among certain members of the state administration. His chances to
win at the presidential elections are estimated very differently.
Oleksandr Moroz, a former speaker of parliament and the current
leader of the Socialist Party, is believed to be the most level-headed
of the leftist politicians. Mr Moroz is a prominent parliamentarian, no
doubt. He believes that the future of Ukraine lies in having a social
and economic structure similar to that one of the Scandinavian democracies
of strong socialist leanings. His judicious and tolerant attitudes have
won him respect of most of his opponents, with the exception of the ultra-leftists
and communists who accuse him of being "pro-bourgeois." The united social-democratic
party supports the present president of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma. Another
candidate is Vasyl Onopenko, the former Minister of Justice, the
leader of one of the social-democratic parties. The rightists and right-centrists
are also represented by several candidates.
Yevhen Marchuk is considered to be one of the most prominent members
of the opposition. Formerly a KGB general (later head of the Security
Service of Ukraine, and still later prime minister), Mr Marchuk, nevertheless,
enjoys the support of many rightist parties, including the Republicans,
the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists and other forces of the non-communist
opposition. The political association he heads is against both any attempts
at "communist revanche" and the present-day policies of the current president
and government. The Economist (a British magazine) has once called Mr
Marchuk "most pro-Western" among all the candidates. The rift in the
Narodny Rukh ("National Movement") that has recently split this party
up, continues to grow. Both sections of the divided Rukh have put
forward their own candidates - Hennadiy Udovenko, a career diplomat
and a former foreign minister, and Yuriy Kostenko, a former minister
for protection of ecology and nuclear safety. The split has badly diminished
chances of both candidates. In the centre of the political spectrum we
find the Greens Party which stands somewhat aside from the rest and joins
no coalitions or alliances. At the parliamentary elections of 1998, the
Greens had a stunning success (which was rather unexpected, even for the
political analysts) and their faction in the Ukrainian parliament is numerically
the third largest faction among all other factions of the Greens in European
parliaments.
Hennadiy Udovenko
Vasyl Onopenko
Vitaliy Kononov
Oleksandr Rzhavsky
Yutiy Karmazin
Oleksandr Bazylyuk
Mykola Haber
Volodymyr Oliynyk
