Ukraine Communists to campaign for Customs Union referendum

The Communist Party of Ukraine will begin gathering signatures in September to hold a national referendum on joining the Customs Union, party chairman Petro Symonenko said on August 8, as reported by the UNIAN news agency.  The referendum would ask Ukrainians two questions: whether they support entry into the Customs Union and whether they support entry into the European Union.

Zenon Zawada: For Western-oriented Ukrainians, there’s both good and bad news in this effort, which has all the potential to become a serious political factor. Ukraine’s Communists have a long history of working in tandem with Russian interests. So the referendum effort is proof that behind the scenes, the Russian government has all but lost its influence on Ukraine’s oligarchs, particularly on President Viktor Yanukovych, and is appealing to the Ukrainian public in a rather desperate gambit.

The bad news isn’t so much that the referendum can undermine the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement that is scheduled for signing at the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius in late November. Indeed elections have repeatedly shown that a majority of Ukrainians support Euro-integration. The threat is that a referendum on such a critical issue as geopolitical orientation can destabilize the country, creating the potential for serious conflicts domestically, particularly against the backdrop of a deteriorating economy and widespread disillusionment in a political system plagued by corruption.