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What Ideology Does BYuT Need?
Taras Kuzio, 14/08/2007 06:27
 "The only political forces interested in fundamental change and in upsetting the corrupt status quo in Ukraine are BYuT and the national democratic wing of Our Ukraine-Narodna Samoborona. These are Ukraine’s closest equivalents to the anti-status quo Thatcher or Sarkozy." Reply to Oleksandr Sokolovsky (Ukrayinska Pravda, 9.08.2007) |
It is interesting to see such a lively debate in the Ukrainian media on the ideological orientation of political parties. That Ukraine is gradually evolving towards a more ideologically structured political system was the aim of those political forces (primarily the opposition) who supported the April 2004 changes to the election law that made parliamentary elections fully proportional.
The evolution towards fewer and more ideologically drive political parties is a medium term process. The 2006 and 2007 elections will assist this evolution but the process will take time, just as it does in any democracy.
What is surprising is to what degree there is so much focus in this discussion on the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc (BYuT). While I would never deny the need for such a debate one wonders why there is far less focus on the other main political parties in Ukraine.
In reality, the ideological orientation of all Ukrainian parties (and not just BYuT) are in flux. Many parties have long not adhered to their ideological principles (i.e. the Communists who are ready to collaborate with the oligarchs) or those who have betrayed their orange voters (i.e. the Socialists) in exchange for state positions. The Communist Party was always a virtual opposition party during the 1990s. Today, after the Communists and Socialists joined the Anti-Crisis coalition, what remains of any left-wing ideology in them?
The Party of Regions is the most confusing "party" of all in parliament. The very term "party" is an incorrect definition of what it constitutes the Party of Regions. The "party" unites ex-Communists, pan-Slavists, trade unionists, centrist reformers, corrupt ex-Kuchma officials, disaffected defectors from the orange camp, Donetsk regional nationalists, big businessmen and billionaire oligarchs. The Party of Regions resembles more an anti-orange popular front than a "political party". Such a popular front could never hope to create a single ideological profile.
Our Ukraine-Narodna Samoborona is likewise a symbiosis. Our Ukraine itself was always composed of a national democratic wing that had grown out of Rukh and other national democratic parties who were closer in spirit to BYuT. It also included a pro-business wing that defected largely from the Kuchma camp after Viktor Yushchenko's government was removed in April 2001.
Since 2002 Yushchenko has fluctuated between these two wings of Our Ukraine, supporting at times cooperation with Arise Ukraine! protests while at other times seeking a parliamentary coalition with pro-Kuchma centrist parties. This fluctuation reached its apogee after the March 2006 elections when one wing of Our Ukraine negotiated a coalition with BYuT (through Roman Besmertny) and another wing negotiated a coalition with the Party of Regions (through Yuriy Yekhanurov).
Our Ukraine went into the 2006 elections headed by its business wing (Yekhanurov). This year it is fighting the elections headed by its national democratic wing (Yuriy Lutsenko and Vyacheslav Kyrlylenko).
Our Ukraine's long standing multi-vectorism is compounded by the addition of Lutsenko's Narodna Samooborona to the Our Ukraine bloc. Lutsenko's anti-corruption and anti-oligarch rhetoric is close in spirit to the program of BYuT. Yet, the president seeks to have close relations with big business and oligarchs, as testified by his second meeting with them in July.
Our Ukraine and Rukh have, it is true, long had observer status in the EPP. At the same time, their ideological profile is not clear cut. Our Ukraine-Narodna Samoborona has set for itself the task of building a center-right party by merging its constituent parties after the elections.
Why then is the Kongres Ukrainskykh Natsionalistiv (KUN) a member of the Our Ukraine-Narodna Samoborona bloc? KUN is closer to the populist nationalist right found in Austria, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Poland and Slovakia than to the center-right parties that belong to the EPP. If KUN had deputies in the European Parliament they would be members of the Union for Europe of the Nations faction, not the EPP, where they could sit alongside similar parties, such as Italy's Alleanze Nationale.
Mr. Sokolovsky also takes too narrow a view of Conservatism in Western democracy. In reality there are many differences and nuances.
The US Republican Party, for example, has little in common with most parties in the EPP. Americans are far more religious than Europeans: sixty percent of Americans regularly attend Church compared to only 20 percent in Europe. Little wonder therefore that religion plays such an important role in American political and social life, including in the Republican Party.
There were close similarities between the old Republican Party of Ronald Reagan and that of Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives. Today, there is little that the high government spending neo-Conservative US Republican and the Thatcherite, British Conservatives have in common except that they are both labeled as "Conservatives".
The British Conservative Party was a status quo party until the 1970s. But, this fundamentally changed with the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979.
Thatcher was very against maintaining the status quo. She represented a wing of the British Conservative Party that wished to change the status quo in a very radical way. Nicolas Sarkozy is a contemporary adherent of this radical Conservatism that is against the status quo and seeks deep reforms. Both Thatcher and Sarkozy believe such fundamental change would reinvigorate Britain and France's national identity.
Both Thatcher and Sarkozy were opponents of those who represented the status quo wing of the British and French Conservatives (Edward Heath in Britain and Jacque Chirac in France). In Britain the status quo Conservatives were labeled "Wets" and the reformers "Dry-es".
The Socialist International (SI) unites mainly unreformed center-left parties. The British Labor Party ("New Labor") is a member of the SI because of long standing tradition. Nevertheless, the policies pursued by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have more in common with Bill Clinton's Democratic Party than the constituent parties of the SI. The Labor Party became New Labor in the 1990s because it had to change if it wanted to win an election, which it did in 1997 when New Labor came to power.
The only political forces interested in fundamental change and in upsetting the corrupt status quo in Ukraine are BYuT and the national democratic wing of Our Ukraine-Narodna Samoborona. These are Ukraine's closest equivalents to the anti-status quo Thatcher or Sarkozy. Those millions of Ukrainians who stood on the Maidan in winter 2004 also stood for change and against the status quo.
The business wing of Our Ukraine and the Party of Regions are the adherents of status quo politics in Ukraine. It is they who do not seek any fundamental changes of the political-economic system introduced under Kuchma.
Ukraine needs fundamental change, just as did the "sick man of Europe" that Britain was called in the 1970s and France is called today. The Orange Revolution promised Ukrainians change.
Fundamental change and reform is what one wing of Western European Conservatives represented by Thatcher and Sarkozy stand for. It is this tradition, which represents one wing of the EPP, that best fits BYuT - not the stagnant Socialist International.
BYuT made the right choice in opting for the EPP and not the SI.
Source: Dr. Taras Kuzio.
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15/08/2008 15:48
