03/26/2002 | Free Spirit

RUKH-1 TO RUKH-2: YUSHCHENKO'S OUR UKRAINE
By Taras Kuzio, a research fellow at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Toronto.
RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 6, No. 54, Part II, 21 March 2002

The Ukrainian Movement for Perestroika (commonly referred to
as Rukh) was established in 1988-1989 as a popular front comprising
former prisoners of conscience from the Ukrainian Helsinki Group and
members of the cultural intelligentsia. Rukh became a catalyst for
other opposition parties and civic groups that came on the scene
during the last few years of Soviet rule.

During the 1990s, however, Rukh became progressively marginalized within Ukraine's evolving multiparty political system. In 1992, the movement divided into two wings, one led by Vyacheslav Chornovil who stood in "constructive opposition" to President Leonid Kravchuk and another that supported Kravchuk and created the Congress of National Democratic Forces (KNDS).

In the second half of the 1990s, Chornovil's Rukh had better
relations with President Leonid Kuchma because of Kuchma's support
for reform in 1994-1996 and his pro-Western orientation between
1995-1999. By 1998-1999, though, relations were beginning to sour as
Rukh became disillusioned with the type of regime emerging in
Ukraine, the rampant corruption, and the widening gap between
rhetoric and policies. After the death of Chornovil in a suspicious
car accident in March 1999, Rukh again split into two wings. One
wing, led by former Foreign Minister Hennadiy Udovenko, maintained
good relations with the government, while the other, led by Yuriy
Kostenko, leaned toward the opposition and kept close ties with Yulia
Tymoshenko's Fatherland party.

Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko has transformed the faction into Rukh-2 (Our Ukraine) for the current elections. That transformation has been so thorough that the only similarity left between the old Rukh-1 and Our Ukraine is that pop singer Taras Petrenenko continues to close all of Our Ukraine's llies with Rukh's unofficial anthem "Ukraine, Ukraine!"Our Ukraine is more popular than Rukh-1 for a number of reasons. Unlike Rukh-1, Our Ukraine has a socio-economic program, and about two-thirds Yushchenko's typical campaign stump speech is devoted to laying out this program.

The Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU) and the oligarchs voted no-confidence in Yushchenko's government in April 2001, despite
his record as prime minister in 1999-2001, when he paid back wages
and pensions and presided over Ukraine's first period of economic
growth in a decade. This track record seems to be working in Our
Ukraine's favor.

In Yushchenko, Our Ukraine has a charismatic leader who is
able to bridge the gap between citizens and rulers, a gap that was
already large during the Soviet era and which grew wider in the
1990s. Our Ukraine has managed to reunite the two wings of Rukh and
the successor to the KNDS, the Christian Republican Party. Our
Ukraine now includes 25 political parties, including liberal,
patriotic, and Christian-democratic factions, as well as the
Federation of Trade Unions.It has also broadened Rukh-1's old social
base by incorporating pragmatic bankers and others from the financial
sector, as well as representatives of business and state officials.

Roman Bezsmertnyy, political coordinator of Our Ukraine, is still the
president's representative in parliament and is a former member of
the Republican Party and of the People's Democrats (NDP). Bezsmertnyy
resigned from the NDP after he joined Our Ukraine and the NDP aligned
with For a United Ukraine (ZYU).

Pragmatists have been attracted to Our Ukraine because it defines itself as an alternative -- rather than an opposition -- in a
country where optimism for a better future has all but evaporated. If
Rukh-1 could be described as romantic, Rukh-2/Our Ukraine is purely
pragmatic, Ukraine's first real alternative to either a sort of
return to the past as envisioned by the KPU or continued muddling
along with no clear strategy, as favored by the oligarchs.

It was always a mistake for Western and Russian commentators
to categorize post-1992 Rukh-1 as "nationalist," a holdover from the
Soviet era, when a "Ukrainian nationalist" was by definition from
western Ukraine, spoke Ukrainian and supported center-right parties.
It is also a mistake to define Our Ukraine as "nationalist." Our
Ukraine supports the Jewish former mayor of Odesa, Eduard Hurfits,
who is now running on the Our Ukraine party list. In mid-March, Our
Ukraine condemned anti-Semitic leaflets that had been circulated
against Hurfits. Our Ukraine's party list also includes Crimean
Tatars and ethnic Russians. Volodymyr Hrynyov, a Kharkiv-based former
head of the Russophile Social-Liberal (SLON) alliance during the 1998
elections, is now supporting Our Ukraine. The hard-line national-democratic and nationalist parties have joined Tymoshenko's bloc, not Our Ukraine.

A comparison of public-opinion polls conducted by several organizations in mid-March by the Internet publication "Ukrayinska Pravda" gave Our Ukraine a popularity rating of between 24 and 33 percent, far higher than pro-presidential blocs or the KPU and an increase from 18.8 percent a month earlier. UCEPS predicts that this could reach as high as 29.3 percent, due primarily to Yushchenko's personal popularity. Unlike Rukh-1, Our Ukraine's more pragmatic program has generated support in eastern and southern Ukraine, albeit far less than in western Ukraine where polls give it 50-percent support.

Yushchenko has refrained from criticizing the government, and
its only criticism is directed at oligarchic groups such as the
Social Democratic Party Ukraine-united (SDPU-o) and former Prime
Minister Valeriy Pustovoytenko's NDP, which is one of five parties
that make up ZYU. "The SDPU-o is as likely to evolve into social
democrats as sea lions into lions," Yushchenko tells his supporters
at rallies. Yushchenko has also ridiculed the claim that the
1997-1999 Pustovoytenko government laid the foundation for Ukraine's
economic revival, claiming that Ukraine was on the verge of
bankruptcy when Yushchenko himself became prime minister in December
1999.

It is also wrong to consider Our Ukraine "nationalist"
because its support for radical economic and political reforms and
for Ukraine's integration into European and trans-Atlantic structures
are hardly traditionally nationalist positions. Our Ukraine simply
seeks to take back from the oligarchs control of a country that was
propelled to independence by Rukh-1 in 1989-1991. That is what
Yushenko means when he tells supporters at rallies, "This is your
Ukraine! This is your Ukraine!"

Our Ukraine argues that the national revolution successfully
launched by Rukh-1 needs to be completed now by a democratic
revolution led by Rukh-2. One of the priorities for Ukraine is to
overcome its "crisis of power" and change its "momentocracy" for a
medium- to long-term plan. "Over the last 10 years, no system has
been created that would guarantee Ukrainian democracy," Yushchenko
wrote in the weekly "Zerkalo nedeli/Dzerkalo tyzhnya."

Our Ukraine has entered Ukraine's political arena during a
generational change similar to that experienced by Russia in the late
1990s. Our Ukraine is a young bloc, with an average age of 40 among
its candidates. The generation represented by former President Boris
Yeltsin in Russia and Kravchuk and Kuchma in Ukraine will go into
retirement in two years' time. The generation following them,
represented by Vladimir Putin in Russia and Yushchenko in Ukraine,
are now taking their places. If Our Ukraine does well in the
elections, it could serve as a powerful launch pad should Yushchenko
decide to run for the presidency in 2004.