UKRAINE: "ORANGE" RIFTS DEEPENING TWO YEARS AFTER

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KYIV 004362

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/22/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL UP
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: "ORANGE" RIFTS DEEPENING TWO YEARS AFTER
REVOLUTION


Classified By: Pol Counselor Kent Logsdon for reasons 1.4(a,b,d).


1. (C) Summary. On the second anniversary of the Orange
Revolution, November 22, a crowd of 500 or so gathered on the
Maidan to commemorate the rise of democracy in Ukraine. Few
leaders of the Maidan were there to share in the event.
Disheartened by the failure to form a new "orange" government
after the March Rada elections and the subsequent return of
Yanukovych, the Maidan team has become mired in
fingerpointing and allocating blame. Although they continue
to have contact, for example, Tymoshenko reportedly meets
with the presidential team every week, increasingly divergent
views on the way forward suggest future cooperation between
Tymoshenko, Yushchenko, and the Our Ukraine leadership will
be superficial at best.


2. (C) A new generation of political reformers, frustrated by
OU and BYuT, have begun to publicly and privately discuss a
new political project to regain popular support for a
pro-Euroatlantic, pro-market reform, and anti-corruption
platform. The two most vocal proponents of this idea are
Minister of Internal Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko and Rada deputy
(Our Ukraine faction) Mykola Katerynchuk. Such an effort,
which could redraw the political map of Ukraine in a way that
positively incorporated the legacy of the Orange Revolution
rather than continuing the same preexisting forces with the
same political personalities, is what many people both inside
and outside Ukraine expected would happen immediately after
the Orange Revolution, but did not. Instead, very little new
blood and new perspectives made it into the party lists for
the Rada elections, even for post-Orange lists like OU and
BYuT. Whether such a new political project proves any more
effective in organization, message, platform, and electoral
success than OU remains to be seen. End Summary and Comment.

Lutsenko Looking for Way "Forward"
--------------


3. (C) Internal Affairs Minister Lutsenko seems to be on the
tip of many tongues these days as a potential leader of the
future. On November 17, Lutsenko told the Ambassador that he
was planning a new political force to engage the populace at
the grassroots level and to get back to the Orange
Revolution's reformist ideals. There was a real need for a
"third force" besides the "totalitarians" of Yuliya (BYuT)
and Rinat (Regions); Lutsenko was ready to lead it. Real
activity would start in the spring. The first step would be a
loose union of civic groups, local political efforts, perhaps
to be called the "List of 22", named for November 22 (note:
the start of the Orange Revolution). Like Vaclav Havel's
Charter 77 in the Czech Republic, this could be an open
declaration that like-minded people could affiliate
themselves with. Lutsenko and others would take advantage of
the national month-long holiday break to reinforce
preexisting informal networks, particularly in western and
central Ukraine. Lutsenko's third force (tentatively:
"Forward, Ukraine") would be created from the grassroots up,
uniting democrat-minded left- and right-centrists. Lutsenko
would help lead a series of provincial "plebiscite meetings"
between February-May that would act as primary system,
allowing people to endorse the leaders they wanted, not those
imposed from above by an OU congress or the diktat of
Yushchenko or Poroshenko.


4. (C) A young group of truly democratic-minded,
western-oriented, not discredited politicians would serve as
the core of this new party: Lutsenko, Yatsenyuk ("his
economic good sense balances my revolutionary fervor"),
Katerynchuk, Kyrylenko, Stetskiv. They would draw on Pora,
the youth movement that helped organize the 2004 Maidan
events, as well. Lutsenko added that it was important to
keep OU in the fold because as a Rada faction, it had the
right to representatives on 33,000 election precinct
committees. It was also important to keep OU MPs from
defecting to Regions and creating a 300 MP constitutional
majority that would give Yanukovych the ability to override
presidential vetoes. It was important too to destroy the
image of East-West enmity; better to contrast oligarchs and
crime with honest people and honest economic activity.
Lutsenko didn't think there would be elections in the short
term (i.e. spring),which would allow time to construct this
new political force. Recent articles, however, in Ukrainska
Pravda and Dzerkalo Tyzhnya speculated that if Lutsenko could
pull off his project, his "mega orange bloc" could get 20
percent in early elections.

Katerynchuk Heeding the Call
--------------


5. (C) Another new leader searching for a fresh political
movement is Mykola Katerynchuk. After months of speculation

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that he would leave OU, he finally resigned from the People's
Union Our Ukraine party on November 13 after the party
congress rejected his ideas for reform. Katerynchuk had told
us privately on October 27 that he thought the party needed
to clean house and get back to advocating the democratic
principles it had embraced on the Maidan. Katerynchuk
outlined his vision for reforming the party in Ukrainska
Pravda on the eve of the November 11 party congress, which
earned him attacks from party leadership and delegates from
central and eastern Ukraine. Two days later, he stepped
down; he remains in the OU Rada faction, although it has been
speculated that if he left OU for BYuT, he could take 12-14
MPs with him. After announcing his resignation, Katerynchuk
said that the time was near for a new political force and
that his political career was linked with up-and-comers
Yatsenyuk, Stetskiv, Kyrylenko, and Lutsenko.

Tymoshenko: Opposing on Her Own
--------------


6. (C) The potential for cooperation between BYuT and OU is
dwindling as both sides target the same electorate and
continue to snipe at each other. In the most recent edition
of Dzerkalo Tyzhnya, Tymoshenko wrote a stirring editorial
about the Orange Revolution and called on Yushchenko not to
go out on the street and celebrate it, but to sit at home and
reflect on what was gained and then lost. She placed a lot
of blame on Yushchenko and the Our Ukraine camp for losing
sight of their reform goals. In meetings over the past two
months with Tymoshenko and her foreign policy adviser
Nemyria, they talk about cooperation with OU, but their
criticisms--they're indecisive; Bezsmertniy is a bad leader,
future cooperation in early elections only with announcement
that Tymoshenko will be next PM--belie their stated
intentions. In her most recent meeting with EUR A/S Fried on
November 16, Tymoshenko sounded a little more openly
disgusted with Yushchenko and his circle. and said that BYuT
was trying to cooperate with OU enough to at least stop
Regions from gaining a 300-deputy majority, but there was not
much potential beyond that.


7. (C) In another strike against broader cooperation,
Tymoshenko's new political ally, the Reforms and Order party
(led by former Finance Minister Pynzenyk) expelled
up-and-comer Taras Stetskiv from its ranks on November 16 for
allegedly working on a new political project for Yushchenko
and criticizing Pynzenyk's decision to sign a cooperation
agreement with Tymoshenko.

Our Ukraine: Losing Momentum, Members
--------------


8. (C) Meanwhile, the People's Union Our Ukraine (PUOU) party
is still trying to find its way. After a party congress on
November 11 that failed to provide any qualitative changes to
its leadership or political strategy, party leaders are
bailing and fingerpointing. First Katerynchuk quit on
November 13. Then businessman David Zhvaniya resigned from
the political council on November 19 because he thinks "the
party leadership is unreformable." At the congress itself,
leaders of the political council--including Bezsmertniy,
Poroshenko, Martynenko, and Yekhanurov--were resistant to
accepting any blame for party problems, which elicited boos
from delegates from Western Ukraine. Bezsmertniy has begun
to reach out to pro-reform parties that did not make it into
Rada in March, such as Kostenko's People's Movement of
Ukraine, Reforms and Order, and Pora to form a new "European
Choice" confederation. Yekhanurov said in an interview with
Ukrainska Pravda on November 17 that Poroshenko, Tretyakov,
and Zhvaniya should all resign to prevent the party from
slowly dying. In addition, one of the Our Ukraine faction's
constituent parties, Rukh, announced it will negotiate with
BYuT independently of OU.


9. (C) OU is suffering regionally as well, especially in the
West, traditionally its bastion of support. In Lviv, one of
only three oblasts to deliver a plurality to OU in the March
elections, supporters have been flocking to BYuT, according
to an academic contact. The Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv
branches left the party congress early to show solidarity
with Katerynchuk. Following the congress, a number of
Zhytomyr members resigned from PUOU.

Yushchenko and OU moving apart?
--------------


10. (C) There seems to be a growing distance between
Yushchenko and the party leadership. The President skipped
the party congress to attend a concert by Italian pop singer
Toto Cutugno. Then, in a November 22 interview with the top
three national TV networks, the President indicated that he

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supports, if is not an outright participant in, Lutsenko and
Katerynchuk's project. He said that he could not be held
responsible for the split in the "orange team," because he
was above the political process. He regretted, however, the
internal discord among the Maidan forces and suggested that
they should all reconsolidate around a new political project
that would be led by people who are not members of Our
Ukraine (note: presumably a reference to Lutsenko et al). He
also called on OU to "cleanse" itself.


11. (C) From its side, the party has started to demonstrate
independence from Yushchenko. OU members told the press on
November 10 that Yushchenko was urging OU to reform itself
under the leadership of someone new, like Lutsenko, Bondar,
or Yatsenyuk, but at the party congress, party leaders
Bezsmertniy, Poroshenko, and Martynenko repelled efforts to
get his "new team" into the leadership. They also indicated
that Yushchenko's position as honorary head of the party is
mostly symbolic at this point.

"Orange Team": Going Forward, Separately
--------------


12. (C) Significant cooperation between the various groups
seems unlikely. Lutsenko told the Ambassador that BYuT has
been trying hard to unseat him because Tymoshenko feared his
popularity might now equal hers. While he didn't agree with
her politics, he respected Tymoshenko as a politician.
Unfortunately, she didn't reciprocate, and she would continue
to focus on settling old scores (against erstwhile orange
allies) at the expense of achieving success. In his private
comments to us, Katerynchuk underscored that he did not want
Tymoshenko to be the only opposition leader. For her part,
Tymoshenko appears increasingly skeptical of Yushchenko's
role in the opposition, especially as he continues to pursue
cooperation with Yanukovych. It may be that Yushchenko
cannot be President and leader of the opposition at the same
time in this system, but as BYuT becomes the only prominent
voice of opposition, OU will lose even more stature, and
Yushchenko will lose influence. Whether Lutsenko and
Katerynchuk's new political project can bring together
reformist forces any more effectively than existing parties
remains to be seen.


13. (U) Visit Embassy Kyiv's classified website:
www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev.
Taylor