Ukraine opposition to compete in March 2015 election separately

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the parliamentary faction chair of the Fatherland party, confirmed on Jan. 5 that Ukraine’s three opposition parties will independently field candidates in the first round of the March 2015 presidential elections. “The explanation is very clear – one won’t be registered, a second will be removed and a third will be poisoned,” Yatsenyuk said, referring to the government’s tactics against the presidential candidates. “Therefore it would be incorrect to set a single target today, which will be destroyed 15 months before the elections.”

Yatsenyuk, the likely presidential candidate from the Fatherland party, referred a May agreement between the three leading opposition leaders in which they committed themselves to support the single opposition candidate in the second-round runoff. “Victory is not to become president, but to change the country,” he told the 5 Kanal television network. “One president isn’t capable of doing that. That’s why our victory lies in the three opposition forces in 2014 forming a single team-victor of European changes. That team won’t simply compete in the elections, won’t simply win them but will prove to the entire world that Ukraine is capable of conducting changes and that it will practically be an EU member after 2015.”

Zenon Zawada: Many Ukrainian civic leaders see the need for a single opposition candidate, and so do we. There are valid arguments to be made for several opposition candidates to compete in the first round, as offered by Yatsenyuk. But we see the risk as significant for the opposition to split the vote so widely that it could create nightmare scenarios, such as two pro-Russian candidates into the second round, including President Viktor Yanukovych.

The opposition leaders must also keep in mind that other pro-EU candidates will inevitably spring up. Confectionary magnate Petro Poroshenko has already begun his informal presidential campaign, appearing on New Year’s Eve with his family before hundreds of thousands of potential voters at the EuroMaidan. Should he compete, we expect Poroshenko will gain significant support from those pragmatic-minded voters dissatisfied with all three opposition candidates, which are many. We also expect the government to field technical pro-EU candidates, such as Mykola Katerynchuk, to dilute the vote even further.

Undoubtedly, the second-round vote will not be recognized as legitimate by the public – both in Ukraine and abroad – without a pro-EU candidate competing against Yanukovych (which would reflect the will of the public). However, the opposition could find itself again in the position that it’s currently in: having a lame duck, authoritarian president without the legal mechanisms to remove him. Resorting to violence would only enhance Yanukovych’s authoritarian position. We think the opposition is playing a very risky game in not supporting a single candidate in the first round vote.