Avakov withholds support for Poroshenko in election campaign

Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, among the
founders of the People’s Front party, indicated difficulties in reaching an
agreement for uniting his party with the Solidarity Poroshenko Bloc for the
presidential and parliamentary elections in 2019. In an interview with the
liga.net news site published on April 4, he indicated that the People’s Front
is considering supporting a presidential candidate other than Poroshenko. “I
shudder when I hear about a single candidate,” Avakov said. “I believe that
Poroshenko can be one of the realistic presidential candidates, among others.”
For the parliamentary vote (scheduled for October 2019), he said he opposes
uniting in a single party, which would have been done by proportionally
divvying up places on the closed list. The pre-election window of possibilities
is closing, he said.

Former political prisoner Yulia Tymoshenko enjoys
24.6% support for the presidential elections among those who will vote and have
decided, compared to 9.8% for Poroshenko, according to a poll conducted by the
Kyiv International Institute of Sociology between Feb. 5 and 21 of 2,043
respondents. Among political parties, Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party has 22.5%
support, compared to 6.6% for the Solidarity Poroshenko Bloc and 1.5% for the
People’s Front, which would miss the 5% threshold to qualify. The People’s
Front finished first in the October 2014 parliamentary elections with 22.2%
support, while the Poroshenko Bloc finished in second with 21.8% support and
Fatherland was sixth with 5.7%.

Zenon Zawada: The
president’s Solidarity party and People’s Front are currently in talks on how
to approach next year’s election. So Avakov is using this interview to help
raise his ante to draw as much concessions as he can from the president for
himself and his fellow party members. The tone of his responses indicates that
he’s not afraid to walk away from any alliance with the president and his
party, whose ratings have collapsed in recent months.

With the same polls showing surging support for
pro-EU populist Tymoshenko and her party, Avakov and the other People’s Front
leaders could easily decide to unite with her. The People’s Front party by
itself has no chance of qualifying for parliament. But with his control of the
national police force, Avakov can gain from Tymoshenko many concessions for his
fellow party leaders. They could compete in the elections as a bloc of parties,
or become members of Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party.