Borys TARASIUK:

The 2006 elections were marked by the shattering defeat of the national democratic forces, along with the personalities who had played a significant role in gaining Ukraine’s independence. This is true of the parties and blocs that failed to get seats in parliament (Kostenko-Pliushch Bloc, Pora-PRP) and those who surmounted the 3 percent barrier as members of stronger electoral groups. Can anyone doubt that if the People’s Rukh of Ukraine (NRU) or the Sobor Party had acted on their own, they would have stood as little chance as their ideological rivals?

Of course, it is possible to find some consolation in the fact that “Rukh has retained its status as a parliamentary party,” as seems to be the case with NRU leader Borys Tarasiuk, interviewed below. But it is best to draw conclusions from the overall national democratic fiasco and consider other parties’ prospects.

Mr. Tarasiuk, are you satisfied with the results of the parliamentary elections?

Tarasiuk: I am satisfied with the elections, but I wouldn’t go so far in describing their outcome. Without a doubt, we, as part of the Our Ukraine bloc, expected a weightier result. Our expectations were not ungrounded, since various sociological studies showed that the outcome would be close to 20 percent. Obviously, everything will have to be analyzed and appropriate conclusions will be drawn.

However, I believe that these results should be regarded from a different angle; the Orange coalition has obtained the majority of seats in parliament and this is a major victory. What is left is shaping up this coalition, in other words reviving the unity of the Orange team; here one must consider not personal ambitions but the unique opportunity given us by history to build a Ukrainian Ukraine.

Press reports have said that you are considering the possibility of joining efforts with the Party of Regions — if they discard a number of their foreign political priorities. Do you really think that such a coalition is possible?

Tarasiuk: I was amazed to read this allegation on several Web sites; I am supposed to have voiced this option at a meeting of Our Ukraine’s Political Council, which took place with a rather limited number of participants. I do not know if this whole thing was invented by journalists covering the event, or whether this is someone’s attempt to produce false information concerning my stand on the matter.

Be that as it may, hard facts must come first, not hearsay. Just as various parties were debating possible coalitions, the NRU Political Council passed a clear-cut resolution on Tuesday, March 28, to the effect that the future coalition will be possible only with the parties that joined us on the Orange Maidan. It is an established fact for both the People’s Rukh of Ukraine and for me as chairman of the NRU.

Would you comment on Yuriy Kostenko’s statement? He said that Borys Tarasiuk forced the People’s Rukh of Ukraine to go to the elections as part of the Our Ukraine bloc in order to retain positions in the power system.

Tarasiuk: First, the decision to set up an electoral bloc was not mine. A resolution urging all patriotic forces to unite was unanimously passed by the 15th All-Ukraine NRU Assembly back in February 2005. You can look it up on our party Web site ( www.nru.org.ua ). Now, from the standpoint of the results achieved by the Kostenko- Pliushch bloc, can you tell us that we didn’t turn out to be right?

Rukh retains the status of a parliamentary party with all attendant consequences. It is unfortunate that our partners, the UNP and PRP, lost their positions in the Verkhovna Rada and won’t get them back for the next five years. We worry over our friends’ failures as though they were our own. Apparently our arguments last year weren’t convincing enough. Personal ambitions and overstated capacities resulted in the loss of parliamentary seats by spectacular personalities and true patriots with many years of parliamentary experience.

If we had joined efforts with the parties that formed the Our Ukraine bloc in 2002, the turnout would have been at least four percent higher than what we have now. Now this is only simple addition, because I am convinced that our voters had definite feelings about the patriotic democratic forces failing to compete in the parliamentary race as a single bloc.

As for my posts, I was surprised to hear Yuriy Kostenko’s statement. I was entrusted with presiding over the legendary Rukh when I was in the opposition. And I had nearly 30 years of diplomatic experience. (I resigned in 2000 because I disagreed with Leonid Kuchma’s political course.)

I regard such statements as an attempt to shift the burden of one’s failures during the last parliamentary elections to someone else’s shoulders.

Does this mean that the NRU will not “become diluted” in the Our Ukraine bloc?

Tarasiuk: Did anything like that happen in 2002? Let me remind you that the People’s Rukh of Ukraine was part of the faction Our Ukraine from 2002 until September 2005; it had its party group there and never became assimilated within the bloc. So what kind of “dissolution” can be discussed today? Coordinating efforts with bloc partners by no means rules out political initiatives being put forward in the Verkhovna Rada. Those who offer such pessimistic forecasts with regard to our party simply cannot bring themselves to accept the fact that Rukh has now finally asserted its status as the leading right-centrist force in Ukraine.

A DIFFERENT OPINION

Viktor RYBACHENKO, vice-president of the Ukrainian Association of Political Psychologists:

I think that the national democratic forces that failed to obtain seats in parliament must have overlooked a very important aspect, namely the narrowing of the electorate backing the national democratic movement. Ukraine followed a somewhat different path, where national democratic values lost their priority status, perhaps replaced by nonideological values in conjunction with European integration, development of the Ukrainian economy, accessing the global community, and establishing a civil society in Ukraine. Everyone wants to be in Europe; both the people from Donetsk and Pinchuk, who wants to sell his metals there.

Therefore, the national democratic ideas that reached their peak in the early 1990s are now on the side of the main road along which Ukraine is traveling. I met with Dmytro Pavlychko recently and he said that, after all that has come to pass, it’s a shame that there are so few poets, writers, and artists in the Verkhovna Rada, people capable of bringing up matters relating to language and culture.

Years have passed but people’s views have not changed since the early 1990s. I regard this as a limitation; those people didn’t consider the possibility of their electorate dwindling away. They believed that there would be enough national democrats for Yushchenko, Tymoshenko, and themselves. They relied on individual oblasts in the west and central Ukraine. As it was, these territories turned out to be under Our Ukraine and BYuT control — especially the BYuT. Those voters who refused to support Yushchenko sided with Tymoshenko, so there weren’t enough votes left for Kostenko.

As for the national democratic forces that did obtain seats in parliament as members of blocs like Rukh and Sobor, I am convinced that they will not be able to pick up the banner of the national democratic idea. I think that they should change their strategy; they must turn over this page of history and realize that there is no turning back.