BY
Ukrainian politics, aside from the loony left
and swivel-eyed right, is devoid of ideology.
It’s not a secret.
No party has any depth and therefore is absent
any strength due quite simply to the fact that every party is nothing more than
a vehicle for the personality (or personalities) that leads them.
Strip away Yulia Tymoshenko from Batkivshchyna,
or President Poroshenko from Solidarity, or Oleh Lyasko from The Radicals,
Andrei Sadovyi from Samopomich, the oligarchy from the Opposition Block,
or Ihor Kolomoisky from any number of political entities and what is
left? All would be direction-less and quickly structureless, floundering
in an ideological void awaiting the next “personality” to rally behind
(regardless of vested interests held in some cases).
Aside from the loony left and swivel-eyed
right, neither of which have any traction within Ukrainian society, there is a
political ideological void currently filled by vested interests and/or
personality politics driving otherwise empty vessels mislabeled as political
parties.
When the party is not bigger than, nor able to
exert some sort of control over the leader, in an ideological void, is it
worthy of being identified as a political party? Party direction and
voting is not driven by ideological DNA within the party, it is driven by the
leader’s whim and their vested interests, be they personal or business, and
little more.
At a local level in Odessa, post local
elections in 7 days time, this lack of common ideology will probably see a
schism within the Solidarity Party.
Without the clear and common ideology, local
deputies upon the Oblast Council are seen as “somebody’s man”. It will
come as no surprise to see the capable Mikhail Shmushkovitch, the current
Oblast Rada Chairman (Solidarity), a man perceived to be MP Alexie
Goncharenko’s man (Solidarity), toppled and replaced by Maria Gaidar (Solidarity)
who is perceived as Governor Saakashvili’s (Solidarity in all but official
party membership) woman. Likewise others perceived as “Goncharneko
people”, all of whom are Solidarity and some of whom are genuine reformers
and/or competent administrators, will sidelined by Solidarity people more
closely aligned with Governor Saakashvili and his top table team.
Some talented people will move from “somebody’s
man” to “nowhere man” due to perceived loyalties within the same party and the
same oblast. In some cases, this will be an enormous waste of potential
at the expense of the oblast, simply due to a desire to completely dismantle
the inherited “Goncahenko structure” and build an entirely and unquestionably
“Saakashvili loyal” structure, despite many of the “Goncharenko people” being
very supportive of some of Saakashvili’s team. For example, all seem to
fully support Maria Gaidar – even if many have severe reservations about others
such as Vladimir Zhmak.
On a national level, it gives the (rightful) appearance
that many parliamentarians are simply for rent to the highest bidder or power
centre of the day having no ideological identity to prevent moving from party
to party in the eyes of the Ukrainian constituency.
Nationally, there appears to be no identifiable
left of centre, centre left, liberal, centre right or right of centre
consistency in any party voting, nor in the rhetoric from the politicians
within any party with regard to domestic politics and policy.
This clearly has an effect upon the Ukrainian
constituency and how it votes today – but perhaps more importantly when looking
to the future, the lack of ideology and/or values consistently undermines
Ukrainian political parties attracting the youth to party membership.
That in turn prevents any depth to any political party, and thus makes
any perceived strength today entirely superficial.
The complete absence of party depth leaves the
Ukrainian parties struggling to find quality candidates at every election (with
even the nepotism, cronyism and nefarious networks being insufficient to fill
every ballot place). This is particularly so at the level of local
elections whereby a good number of candidates in each oblast must be found and
nominated for every village, town, city and oblast seat on the ballot. A
matter further complicated by the new requirement to field at least 30% female
participation.
No party has had the inclination to create a
system that attracts, regularly interacts with, and mentors the youth, which
over time provides political party depth, as it not only generates a
politically schooled and ideologically coherent pool to draw from for the
future when attempting to fill hundreds of local election candidate slots, (not
to mention going some way to mitigating the desperate search of 30% female
participation), but it also generating a small army of youthful party faithful
that will actively campaign for the party at election time.
Instead the candidates and the active campaign
staff are drawn to whichever party pays the most to have them waving flags,
handing out propaganda, or upon occasion, to be named upon the ballot. In
the absence of a political ideology, but with a desire to be politically
active, then going to the highest payer is the only driver when making a
choice.
Without any deep seated party values within its
very DNA to rally around, all Ukrainian political parties will remain brittle
and shallow.
So in the absence of any party values and
ideology is there any point in considering just how to create any political
depth?
Just how difficult is it to create a national
and regional youth pool to mentor, shape and draw from in the future for a
Ukrainian political party?
How hard is it to get parliamentarians and
prospective candidates to visit any local branches and give lectures, engage in
debates etc?
Is it so difficult to open politically aligned
youth movements at every university? (It would be a bonus for the
humanities and social sciences students to be able to regularly debate
parliamentarians and prospective candidates simply from a educational
perspective).
Would any youth party with a national
executive, regional colleges and memberships in and of itself not be an
induction into politics, the grubby deals verses idealism, the messiness of
democracy and all the other stuff politics entails?
Who better to debate and formulate party youth
policies with if not the youth attracted to a particular party?
Are all the current political parties doomed to
failure due to personality driven politics rather than ideologically driven
values, or will they evolve in time to save themselves?
Which comes first? The party or the
ideology? Which is more important for the future of the nation, being the
“somebody’s man” or attracting the “nowhere man”?
Can you reform a nation without reforming the
politics first? Can you have sustainable reforms without sustainable
political parties?
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