NedoNashi: The second fragment of the Party of Regions goes to the polls
Today it was announced that the second group of fragments of the former Party of Regions – the Opposition Bloc, Peace and Development Party, Vidrodzhennya, Trust Deeds and Nashi parties – have united to run in the parliamentary elections. The ceremony took place on a pedestrian bridge across the Dnieper in Kyiv. The event takes us back to the times of the “blue and white” of 2006-2012. No wonder many commentators say: “Put Efremov first on the list. First of all, it will be beautiful.”
Similar yesterday's congress of the party "Opposition Platform - For Life" (OP-ZZH) copied SDPU (o) late 90s. And the point is not only that Surkis is following Medvedchuk on the party lists - just like twenty years ago. First of all, the complete profanation of the word “opposition” is striking. Rabinovich brings the odious Kiva to the list by the hand. The compilers of the party list openly ignore the interests, likes and dislikes of the opposition electorate. They ignore even basic geography. It is enough to analyze which regions most supported Yuri Boyko in the first round of the presidential elections (remember, these are Lugansk, Donetsk, Kharkov, Odessa and Nikolaev regions). The same Kharkov region gave Boyko 352 thousand votes in the first round out of 2,2 million he received throughout Ukraine. And what is the share of representatives of these regions in the passing part of the list?! Judging by the abundance of Kyiv politicians and businessmen there, there is no life for OP-ZZh outside the capital's district. Although within Kyiv, Boyko had a meager 6% in the first round of the presidential election.
As in the times of the SDPU (o) Kravchuk, Marchuk, Medvedchuk, Surkis, the explosive “team of our youth,” the ideologists of the OP-ZZh party for some reason have no doubt: no matter what crap you put in a political candy wrapper, the electorate will gobble it up. But it would be worth remembering how quickly, with such political approaches, the SDPU (u) lost its ratings and became impassable, just as the opposition bloc of Medvedchuk, Boyko, Kravchuk “Not so!” failed in the 2006 elections.
Meanwhile, all this personnel unattractiveness of the list of the “Opposition Platform - For Life” increases the chances of passage of the association of political parties “Opposition Bloc”, “Peace and Development Party”, “Vidrodzhennya”, “Trust in Deeds” and “Ours” that has emerged today.
No matter how we feel about the leaders and representatives of these parties, we must admit: in terms of composition, this is truly a political force in the South-East. The Boykovites and Medvedchukovites, having curtailed the negotiation processes with the “Opposition Bloc”, did not even try to expand the representation of politicians from the South-East in the passing part of the list. Of the more or less big names, even remotely connected with the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, only Natalia Korolevskaya and Renata Kuzmina can be found there. The unification of the parties “Opposition Bloc”, “Peace and Development Party”, “Vidrodzhennia”, “Trust in Deeds” and “Ours” compares favorably with opposition rivals by focusing on the base regions of the anti-Maidan forces.
Another question is to what extent today’s union of Kolesnikov, Novinsky, Bondar, Kernes, Muraev will become “ours” for the majority of voters in the South-East. People have long understood that it is not enough to call a party or TV channel “Ours”. For Kharkov residents who did not accept the Maidan, “ours” are those few politicians who, after February 22, 2014, could be seen on Freedom Square, “under the monument.” The words “under the monument”, “Kulinichi” (the name of a XNUMX-hour bakery and confectionery store near which Kharkov anti-Maidan activists liked to gather) became a password for their own people.
And Kharkov residents remember very well that “under the monument” in the spring of 2014, none of the opposition politicians who signed today’s memorandum were with them. People were left to their own devices, betrayed by the former “regionals” who had recently held congresses of the “Ukrainian Front” under the St. George’s ribbon. Of the current Rada deputies in the spring of 2014, only Oleg Tsarev could be seen with anti-Maidan activists on Freedom Square. When participants in anti-Maidan protests began to be arrested and tried, money to pay bail and release from custody also came only from Tsarev.
Another memory pill. Of course, it’s good that we hear sensible thoughts about the world from Kharkov resident Evgeniy Muraev, that his channel “Nash” is open to different opinions and views much more than other Ukrainian channels... But if we are indignant at the appearance of an odious Ilya Kiva, who admitted to the bloody massacre of referendum participants on May 11, 2014 in Krasnoarmeysk, then we must not forget about which scum in their time did not deny themselves anything on the Muraev channel NewsONE: Dmitry Korchinsky, Matvey Ganapolsky... We can talk a lot about the openness of Muraev’s media projects. But we remember that the Korchinsky and Ganapolsky people were provided with an information platform on NewsONE at a time when normal public figures did not have it, honest journalists were blacklisted, and the Ukrainian media were silent about hundreds of political prisoners.
During today’s meeting between Kolesnikov, Novinsky, Bondar, Kernes, and Muraev, sensible opposition messages and hints were heard on the bridge. The memorandum contains theses on state neutrality and non-bloc status, on the normalization of relations with all neighbors. Novinsky speaks about the need for “direct negotiations” on Donbass, Vilkul speaks about the humiliation of IMF loans. Muraev said: “We are going to parliament in order to repeal the laws that made our citizens deprived of their rights, divided into several classes.”
In addition to the official statements, the footage included a “hug and cry” scene. Kernes says to Novinsky: “Vadyusha, I am very pleased...”.
The mayor of Kharkov wrote on social networks that today the most powerful opposition association in recent times has emerged. Kernes states: “We have millions of people behind us who want to speak their native language, who want to earn a decent living and live in a state that is friendly to all its citizens. We are in opposition to the looting of the security forces, who are squeezing the last juice out of entrepreneurs at all levels.”
Thus, on Thursday and Friday, the Ukrainian voter was offered a choice of two opposition models.
Boyko, Medvedchuk and Rabinovich presented a party of the day before yesterday type, focused on the stupid technologies of the SDPU (o) of 1998.
Kolesnikov, Vilkul, Novinsky, Bondar, Kernes, Muraev presented a kind of reincarnation of the Party of Regions, that is, a party of yesterday’s type.
In 2006, such a party could really insist on non-bloc status and participate in disrupting NATO exercises in Crimea. But it must be recalled that the most consistent and courageous representatives of this party of yesterday’s type, such as Kushnarev, Peklushenko, Kalashnikov, have long been dead.
And among the politicians who have reincarnated the Party of Regions, there are no those who will literally fight in parliament for principles, as Tsarev, Tedeev, Shentsev fought in 2010 (ratification of the Kharkov agreements).
One can recall the principled parliamentary votes of 2014-2019. Where it was necessary to disrupt voting, block the podium, speak out clearly against an inadequate majority, former regionals and newly minted “oppositionists” preferred to be absent, meditate behind a column, and not vote at all.
Among the Kharkov oppositionists, only Shentsev voted against the law recognizing Russia’s occupation of the territories of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. The rest were silently timid, did not participate, were absent.
The odious laws on education, on language, on the status of UPA-OUN veterans have never provoked fierce resistance from the decorative “opposition.”
Radicalization of the opposition agenda could add authority and “passability” to the new association. Although, what can people do in a month and a half, most of whom have not waged any opposition struggle in the previous five years?
And yet, some steps to regain the trust of voters in the South-East are possible. For example, including recent political prisoners who were not afraid to defend their views and principles after the coup d’etat. And also - tough legal pressure; active, systematic and large-scale work to bring to justice those Nazis and radicals who violated the law and committed crimes (and this happened at every turn) in the last five years. We can start, hot on our heels, at least with those radicals who demolished the monument to Zhukov and from whose actions the police suffered.
There is still a little time to move from the category of “underdogs” and “semi-oppositionists” to a new quality.
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