The “sham marriage” cracks

The last meeting of the parliamentary faction Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) was supposed to have become a sort of purging. At least, so it had been said on its eve. The thing is that a part of regional organizations expressed a wish to expel those MPs from the faction who did not vote for no confidence to Mykola Azarov’s government. However, this never happened. The violators of party discipline were only warned.

It is worthwhile mentioning that a latent conflict inside Batkivshchyna has been smoldering for a long time now. Anatolii Hrytsenko has several times publicly chastised the faction’s leader Arsenii Yatseniuk, and now the former, too, voted for punishing the disobedient MPs. Mykola Martynenko, on the contrary, represents the other camp: he is one of the absentees on the day when the resignation of Azarov’s government was put to the vote.

“This is a conflict between politicians and businessmen who want to profit from politics,” says political scientist Serhii Taran in his comment to The Day. “This particular conflict sheds light on the malady of Ukrainian politics, where political forces have no transparent and fair financial source. As a result, political parties are supported by businessmen who consider politics purely as business. Consequently, they pass business decisions instead of political ones. As a result, we get turncoats who do not care for the voters’ opinion. Businessmen are pressurized by the regime, and if they don’t do what they are doing, they will lose their businesses. Thus what we are now observing within the United Opposition’s faction, sheds light on these problems. There can be no winners in this conflict. This is a wrong kind of political strife and a wrong kind of political enemy. There are only losers. The opposition should oppose the regime, rather than wage a war inside the faction.”

THE SOPHISTICATED GAME IN THIS MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE WILL CONSTANTLY CREATE TENSIONS

Vadym KARASIOV, political scientist, director, Institute for Global Strategies:

“The conflict testifies to a crisis within Batkivshchyna as a faction and a consolidated political power. Batkivshchyna can either emerge from this conflict renewed and more consolidated, with better political conditions, or it will continue to split up and lose its oppositionist ‘combatant value,’ especially compared to UDAR and Svoboda. These two look as solid monoliths on the background of the fragmented Batkivshchyna.

“Besides having a fragmenting party component, the faction Batkivshchyna falls into three major groups fighting for leadership, dominance in the organization, and prospects (since the brand Batkivshchyna has a rather stable electoral value). The first is Yatseniuk’s group. Yatseniuk was given a free hand by Tymoshenko, as she saw no better prospects for Batkivshchyna during her absence. The second group is made up of Tymoshenko’s old-time comrades in arms, who today are deprived of the key positions in the faction. The third group is confused, their ambition is to escape the orbit of the Yatseniuk group and preserve their own self-standing political prospects (Hrytsenko, Kyrylenko, and Poroshenko’s supporters).

“Thus, there is a constant struggle among these three groups. This struggle is often inspired from the outside in order to debilitate Batkivshchyna. The goal in this case is Yatseniuk and his supporters, who by the force of their credit history are vulnerable: businessmen and financiers cannot always vote in accordance with their political and ideological preferences. In their oppositional activities they must take into account a number of other serious factors related to the sphere of business, their previous business record, and connections in the economic establishment. These factors can often be projected on the relations within the team in power.

“The sophisticated game in this marriage of convenience (between Batkivshchyna, the Front of Changes, and a number of other political forces), as well as the formation of new groups and movements in the run-up to the 2015 elections will constantly create tensions inside Batkivshchyna. So far Yatseniuk manoeuvers and emerges from each of these crises unharmed, with perhaps only some spots on his reputation; but the organizational links are in his hands, and the hands of his team. However, we cannot speak of Yatseniuk’s final victory. So both this indecisive victory and inconclusive defeat are most likely to keep triggering internal tensions and fragmentation within Batkivshchyna.”