3 September 2014
The Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR) led by Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko will compete in the Oct. 26 parliamentary election united with the pro-presidential Petro Poroshenko Bloc, said on Sept. 2 Vitaliy Kovalchuk, the deputy party head. “The format is currently being discussed, consultations are ongoing and the result will be announced after their conclusion,” he said. The two united parties stand to finish in first place with 31 percent of the vote, according to a poll conducted in July by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.
Zenon Zawada: It’s still unclear whether the parliament plans to amend the election law to allow blocs of parties to compete. (At the moment, the Poroshenko Bloc is legally a party, not a bloc of parties.) If approved, we expect more parties (besides UDAR) to unite with the Poroshenko Bloc and gain quotas of parliament seats. If not, the cooperation between Poroshenko Bloc and UDAR would likely be mainly based on an agreement to refrain from attacks and criticism of each other. However, we wouldn’t expect them to cooperate intimately or merge their candidate lists.
These two political forces demonstrated some friction this summer and it wasn’t a given they’d unite for the election. If Poroshenko is forced to relinquish control by the Russin army of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions by the end of October (which is entirely possible), then that could harm not only the prospects of his party, but that of UDAR, whose performance hasn’t been impressive with Klitschko at the helm of the Kyiv city government. Both Poroshenko Bloc and UDAR are very much being viewed as a rehash of the standard opaque, oligarch-driven politics of the past.