UKRAINE: SHIFTING SANDS AND POST-ELECTION

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 KIEV 000408

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/01/2016
TAGS: PGOV PHUM UP
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: SHIFTING SANDS AND POST-ELECTION
SCENARIOS - UKRAINIAN POLITICS IN TRANSITION

REF: KIEV 367

Classified By: Political Counselor Aubrey Carlson, reason 1.4 (b,d)


1. (C) Summary and Comment: Conversations with Media
watchdog-turned-PORA politician Serhiy Taran, website
editor-turned-Tymoshenko Bloc PR director Oleh Medvedev, and
independent-minded Regions MP Volodymyr Makeyenko January
25-27 provided three views on the shifting ground in
Ukrainian politics heading into the March 26 Rada election
and expected post-election horsetrading to form a
parliamentary majority and the next government. Taran
claimed that the Orange Revolution had allowed Ukraine to
move away from patronage politics to charismatic politics,
but that a necessary shift to programmatic politics remained
in the future. Taran and Medvedev expected the March 26
elections to be the most free and fair in Ukraine's history,
thanks to the fundamental differences in Ukraine's
post-Orange Revolution political environment, particularly
freedom of speech and a lack of intent by the current
government to use administrative resources to favor
affiliated parties. Taran and Medvedev laid out the three
primary post-election scenario options -- Orange, Blue-Red,
and Blue-Orange. While both hoped for an Orange option,
enduring Yushchenko-Tymoshenko animosity was a genuine
obstacle; in contrast, Regions would fall over itself to cut
a deal to return to power. Medvedev candidly acknowledged
that it would be better for either Yushchenko or Tymoshenko
to come to terms with Regions than see a
Regions-Communist-Vitrenko-Lytvyn majority emerge.
Makeyenko, a deputy campaign chair for Our Ukraine in the
2002 Rada race before defecting to Regions over a year before
the Orange Revolution, described his role in facilitating Our
Ukraine-Regions discussions and why Regions believed
Yushchenko "must" reach accommodation with Regions for
Ukraine's sake as well as Yushchenko's own. The trio's
interlocking observations from three parts of the Ukrainian
political spectrum and differing backgrounds demonstrates the
shifting sands of Ukrainian politics a year after
Yushchenko's inauguration and two months prior to the Rada
elections. End Summary and Comment.

Politics in Transition: Patronage, Charisma, and Platforms
-------------- --------------


2. (SBU) Serhiy Taran, a long-time media watchdog who
recently joined his PORA friends for the joint PORA-Reforms
and Order Bloc led by former heavyweight champion Vitaly
Klychko, described to us January 26 Ukraine's ongoing
transition through three fundamental phases of politics.
Through the end of the Kuchma era, patronage politics had
dominated Ukraine's political scene; people voted for
candidates they believed would provide direct benefits, and
politicians sought office and connections primarily for
division of the spoils. The Orange Revolution ushered in an
era of charismatic politics, a large but only partial step
away from the patronage model, to which Regions was still
firmly wedded. Ukraine's weakness, in Taran's view, was an
absence of programmatic politics and clear party platforms.
Most Ukrainian parties remained associated with their
dominant personalities rather than policies or ideologies:
Yushchenko (Our Ukraine),Tymoshenko (Batkivshchyna,
Tymoshenko Bloc),Yanukovych (Party of Regions),Lytvyn
(People's Party),Moroz (Socialists),Vitrenko (Progressive
Socialists). The Communists were perhaps the only exception
currently, but they had no future.


3. (SBU) Taran suggested that Yushchenko, Yanukovych,
Tymoshenko, Moroz, and Lytvyn were all cut from the same
cloth and used to the same "old" rules of politics. Ukraine
sorely lacked a new generation of politics and politicians.
Regions' Makeyenko, who entered the final Soviet Ukrainian
Rada in 1990 at age 29, similarly told us January 25 that the
current Rada was nearly bereft of professionals, packed
instead with "businessmen, bureaucrats, cultural figures, and
crazies." Taran said PORA aspired to fill the new generation
niche; unscientific internet polls, skewed toward the young,
showed PORA as the third choice after Yushchenko and
Tymoshenko. PORA had paired with the established Reforms and
Order Party (RO) led by Finance Minister Pynzenyk to join
RO's professional experience with PORA's youthful enthusiasm.
The PORA-RO platform to be rolled out February 1 would be
liberal, pro-Europe, and "nationalist in a central European
way." That said, to get across the three-percent threshold,
PORA-PO would have to rely on charismatic politics and the
name recognition of bloc leader Vitaly Klychko, recently
retired world heavyweight boxing champion.

Ukraine in 2004 and 2006: "two different worlds"
-------------- ---


4. (SBU) Taran said that his sociological polling indicated
that, despite the disillusionment expressed by 60 percent of
Ukrainians in the lack of progress in 2005, 70 percent still
planned to vote in the March elections, a sign that
Ukrainians still felt their voice could make a difference.
(Note: Other polls similarly show high and even higher "plan
to vote" rates.) Even though numerous smaller problems
remained in Ukraine's political landscape, the 2004 and 2006
election environments represented "two different worlds."
Most importantly, there was freedom of speech for all
parties, no government efforts at falsification, and a range
of options, not just a simple choice of two candidates.


5. (SBU) BYuT PR chief Medvedev echoed a similar line to us
January 27, scoffing when asked about a media report (on
Donetsk-based, Akhmetov-owned TRK Ukraina) that Tymoshenko
had faced difficulties gaining access to large factories and
local media in a recent campaign swing through Dnipropetrovsk
and Zaporizhzhya. Tymoshenko had visited every enterprise
she wanted to, said Medvedev; more importantly, she had
access to every local media outlet possible in the two
provinces. The contrast could not have been greater with
what Yushchenko faced in 2004: shut factory gates, blocked
roads, denied airport landing clearances, and only negative
local media coverage.

Post-election scenarios: Orange, Blue-Red, Orange-Blue
-------------- --------------


6. (SBU) The emerging consensus was that Regions would win a
plurality in the March 26 voting, with Our Ukraine and BYuT
vying for second. The next tier of the Socialists and the
Communists would pull 5-8 percent each, with Lytvyn's Bloc on
the three-percent bubble and Vitrenko and PORA-RO struggling
to get over the threshold. BYuT PR Chief Medvedev said that
his polling indicated that the Orange and Blue electorates
and West/Central vs East/South splits from the 2004
Presidential elections had remained remarkably stable in the
intervening 15 months. Regions, the Communists, and Vitrenko
vied for Yanukovych's 2004 44-percent share, and the
post-Maidan parties competed for Yushchenko's then-52-percent
share. However, Medvedev expected voter turnout in Blue
(i.e., eastern and southern) provinces to be higher than in
Orange (central and western) ones. Despite Tymoshenko's
stated intent of campaigning hard for eastern votes,
Luhansk-native Medvedev said that hardened stereotypes had
proven too tough to break in the short 15-month election
cycle. "If her prospects in Donetsk and Crimea are very bad,
in her hometown Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kharkiv
they are just plain bad." Yushchenko ran strongest in
western provinces, Tymoshenko in central Ukraine.


7. (SBU) With those possible actors and levels of support in
mind, Taran and Medvedev described the same three possible
post-election coalition scenarios. In colored shorthand, the
options could be described as Orange, Blue-Red, and
Orange-Blue, with Rada Speaker Lytvyn's team (whose image is
colorless or grey, despite its chosen campaign color green)
willing to join any coalition that would make them part of a
majority (if it makes it into the Rada). Forging a
parliamentary majority would depend not only on the math of
election returns but also on expected fierce bargaining
between factions, as well as personal animosities.


8. (SBU) Taran and Medvedev both described the most natural
coalition -- and their preferred choice if the math worked --
as the Maidan Orange team reunited: Our Ukraine, BYuT,
Socialists, and PORA-PO. Despite Lytvyn's falling star
recently, his votes might prove necessary to cobble together
a majority. Medvedev, who worked for the Yushchenko 2004
Presidential campaign, cautioned, however, that the personal
animosity between Tymoshenko and Our Ukraine's leaders, not
only Yushchenko but Bezsmertny, Poroshenko, Martynenko, and
Zhvaniya, was deep enough to possibly scuttle the Orange
scenario.


9. (SBU) Neither Taran nor Medvedev ruled out the possibility
of a Regions-Communist-Vitrenko-Lytvyn majority. Taran mused
that such a coalition would hurt Ukraine's image and reform
prospects in the short term but might force Regions into a
more responsible approach to politics and governance.


10. (SBU) In contrast, Medvedev said that were such a
Blue-Red option to emerge as a mathematical possibility, he
would strongly recommend that either Yushchenko or Tymoshenko
cut a deal with Yanukovych and Regions for the sake of
Ukraine's short-term future. Notwithstanding Tymoshenko's
public vow never to unite with Regions, Medvedev said such a
partnership was possible and would be better than the
Blue-Red option; the key would be how to pull Yanukovych away
from Russia and integrate him fully within the Ukrainian
context. Regions was Donetsk oligarch Akhmetov's party in
any event; Medvedev claimed that 30 of the top 100 names on
Regions' list were associated with Akhmetov's business
empire. Taran noted that Regions was pushing hard to return
to government in any event, since the industries associated
with its MP candidates were vulnerable without the patronage
protection of those in power. Taran suggested that
Industrial Union of the Donbas (IUD, owned by Donetsk
oligarch Serhiy Taruta, not Akhmetov) executive Haiduk (a
deputy prime minister for energy under Kuchma) might be a
possible compromise PM candidate for an Orange-Blue
coalition. Taran and Medvedev agreed that former DPM and
Finance Minister (under Kuchma-Yanukovych) Azarov would also
likely be in the mix if the Orange-Blue scenario were to play
out.

Our Ukraine and Regions: the best fit?
--------------


11. (SBU) Regions MP Makeyenko explained Regions' rationale
for why the best post-election scenario for Ukraine and
Yushchenko personally would be a coalition between Our
Ukraine and Regions. The pairing would help unite Orange and
Blue Ukraine; Makeyenko suggested such national unity could
have strengthened Yushchenko and Ukraine's hand in dealing
with Russia over gas. Makeyenko claimed he had worked
closely with Presidential deputy chief of staff Ivan Vasyunyk
to prepare the September MOU between Yushchenko and
Yanukovych, blamed Yushchenko for not fulfilling his part of
the bargain, and said he would continue to work Our Ukraine
connections with an eye toward a post-election accommodation
(reftel).


12. (SBU) Makeyenko spouted a common Regions line:
Yushchenko had no one else to turn to if he wished to be an
effective President. Yushchenko and Tymoshenko's mutual
animosity dated back years; Lytvyn had stabbed Yushchenko in
the back the past two months; Yushchenko despised the SPDU(o)
and the Communists; Our Ukraine's discredited figures like
Poroshenko were a net minus; Russia was like a crocodile
looking to devour him; Europe was silent as a wall after the
departure of Polish President Kwasniewski; Moldova and
Georgia were more millstones than friends; the U.S. blew many
air kisses but delivered nothing. In contrast, "Regions
knows how to deal with Russians, because we see them as
business competitors. Regions is Yushchenko's only real
option if he wishes to rule effectively and not run Ukraine
into the ground," Makeyenko concluded.

Bio notes
--------------


13. (SBU) Serhiy Taran formerly ran the Kiev-based Institute
for Mass Media and was Ukraine's leading media watchdog
analyst before becoming Director of the International
Democracy Institute, designed to help sponsor democratic
movements elsewhere in the former Soviet Union and joining
the PORA-RO list in late 2005. (Note: At number 28 on the
list, Taran is unlikely to make it into the Rada even if
PORA-RO gets over the three-percent threshold; the bloc would
need to garner some 6-7 percent to reach 28 on its list).
Taran also runs the SotsiVymir Center for Sociological and
Political Research. Taran was denied entry into Azerbaijan
in early November when he and PORA leader Zolotaryov tried to
travel to Baku as parliamentary election observers; 14 other
would-be Ukrainian observers who happened to sit near Taran
and Zolotaryov on the plane but had no association with them
were also deported.


14. (C) Luhansk native Oleh Medvedev's "day job" is
editor-in-chief of Obozrevatel media holdings' five websites,
which range from news-heavy www.Obozrevatel.com to the
satirist group "Happy Eggs" at www.eggs.net.ua. Tymoshenko
associate and attack dog Myhailo Brodsky owns Oborzrevatel,
but the calm-mannered Medvedev clearly does not share
Brodsky's disdain for Yushchenko and hopes that the Orange
team can be reassembled. Medvedev said he is not a member of
Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna Party but rather a campaign "hired
gun" running the BYuT campaign's PR Department.


15. (C) Chernihiv native Volodymyr Makeyenko has been in the
Rada since 1990, elected initially on the Communist ticket.
He joined the Socialists for much of the 1990s and briefly
the Agrarian Party before running with Our Ukraine in 2002.
He defected to Regions -- to protect his business interests,
he says -- prior to the Orange Revolution and serves as the
Secretary of the Rada's U.S. caucus. He was a primary backer

SIPDIS
of Moroz' 1999 Presidential bid and came under intense
pressure from the Kuchma-ites to withdraw his support,
fleeing Ukraine with his family during the campaign and
spending several months in the U.S. in the apartment of Itera
executive Makarov, a long-time friend. Like many
politicians, Makeyenko made significant money in the gas
trade and claims to have introduced Tymoshenko to gas
industry players after she first came to Kiev from
Dnipropetrovsk. Independently wealthy, Makeyenko cultivates
an air of being his own man (his business card lists his Rada
committee assignment but not his party affiliation),and is
willing to comment critically on his current Regions allies
as well as his erstwhile Our Ukraine colleagues. At number
48 on Regions' list, he is assured of returning to the Rada.


16. (U) Visit Embassy Kiev's classified website at
www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev.
HERBST