After 15 years of independence, Ukraine is eventually coming to purely proportional elections. Still present-day sociological polls are by now conventionally the evidence of extremely low confidence of population in political parties. Furthermore, at the beginning of independence this index of confidence concerning political parties was much higher. Present-day index sets their leaders thinking.
In particular, according to the findings of the “Democratic Initiatives” Fund in the year 1994 more than 36% of the population supported introduction of the multi-party system in Ukraine, whereas by the end of 2004 this index amounted to only 23%.
The Orange Revolution resulted in splash of civic political activity, became the stimulus of population’s participation in country’s political life. That is, we can hope that level of confidence to political parties institution will rise considerably already during the next parliamentary elections.
Simultaneously, qualitative analysis of sociological poll results convinces us that the development of multi-party system doesn’t mean the introduction of serious ideological background.
To be more simple, overwhelming majority of national political parties have no ideological base for their activity. Furthermore, the process of rupture from ideological constituent in activity of political parties for the sake of political infrastructure is observed. The phenomenon of technological "projects" appears.
Still those who claim that technological political projects are the sign of Kuchma epoch are badly mistaken. Creation of any party, representing those currently in power, is the best evidence of such formation being non-ideological. Not to a lesser extent it concerns “National Union “Our Ukraine””.
Troubles that occur during the process of creation of this party, hypothetical agreements about the unified party list with Tymoshenko and Lytvyn – all this is a bright demonstration of the fact that present government's unified party is being created as a technological project. And no preelection rhetoric of many officials, initiators of creation of this party about “Voice of Maidan” or “Party of Maidan” makes NUOU an ideological political force.
At the same time we should point out that this technological project is after all justified, as actually is the reaction of politicum to sentiments of the population.
Still I would like to attract attention to another political segment closer to me: the green movement in Ukraine.
Relevance of this ideological niche has experienced no major changes since the moment of declaration of independence. Today a considerable part of the population is still concerned about ideological issues and gives them the first place among political priorities.
Sociologists have formulated the issue of green/ecological/environmental ideology correctly enough almost for the first time. In particular, in polls of the “Democratic Initiatives” Fund at the beginning of the year 2005, 12% of the population of Ukraine is well disposed toward “environmental (green in our understanding) political course”. At the same time, according to the statistics of that very poll, from 0.7 to 0.9% of the population is ready to vote for Green Party of Ukraine during the elections.
This author is not inclined to distrust such results. That’s why there is a simple dilemma – how should we connect these two different statistics?!
It is obvious that the Green Party is not equal to “environmental political course” in the eyes of electorate. It means that ideological theses of GPoU are either not perceived by people or simply do not reach them. In any case we confront the problem of political communication: neither ideology of GPoU, nor its activity, nor charisma of political leaders of this party satisfy the voters' view on “environmental political course”.
It would seem there were reasons to think that certain problems with frankness of communication existed back in 2002. The Green Party then was overburdened by negative store of inconsistency in cooperation with and criticism of the authority, the party list was a compromise between rational (organizational and financial possibilities) and ideal (bearers of green ideology), electoral campaign had mostly the signs of technical competition, not the ideological struggle.
And the most important, the Greens weren’t able to state their position in confrontation between authority and opposition clearly, putting it aside, occupying the place of outside observer. And this means withdrawal from politics. Which actually nominally happened in March 2002.
It would seem that the party has got rid both of odious politicians from business (who let themselves lead a number of political projects simultaneously), representatives of “powers-that-be” and their considerable financial injections since then.
As in the first half of 1990s, GPoU was left without financial and organizational support of the ruling elite and business, and at the same time demands to party organization have raised considerably.
A wave of “staff purification”, that has ended only at the beginning of 2005, had swept across the party. Today only “old” staff, who have been concerning themselves with green ideology during the last ten years, is left both in the centre and at the local level. Still the dynamics of trust to the party is extremely negative.
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At the same time, GP’s head Vitaliy Kononov declared: “Our task is to get about 5% during the elections”.
It is not the most important thing that party with European ideology doesn’t get to parliament. The problem lies in the fact that we again confront a difficulty which is traditional for post-Soviet psychology – we again mix up causes with effects, ideology with political struggle, aims with means of their achievement.
So, getting 5% at the polls is a mechanism of spreading the ideology, and not the end in itself of party’s activity. Even more, Green Party in Ukraine as well as in the whole world is a party of municipal type. It means that even without overcoming the 3% barrier during parliamentary elections the party can hold sufficiently strong positions in local administration.
Still to achieve this it is as well necessary to change their approach to political struggle, the view on global goals and means of their achievement.
Instead today we can observe amorphism in decision-making, inconsistency and slackness in upholding their own positions, inability to offer the society what it wants. And society, reasoning from sociological polls and analytical materials, wants to see mighty and organized green movement, that will consist of civil initiative and organized political superstructure. And if civil environmental initiative (even if uncoordinated) exists, political superstructure (which the Green Party should have become) is not noticed by society.
More simply put, Green Party has failed to show its change and renovation. Already traditional protests following the old scheme and with old slogans no longer excite the voters. Even more, average Ukrainian started to think that the ecological situation is coming around.
In particular, according to sociological data more than 19% estimated ecological situation as extremely unfavourable in 2002, and already in 2004 there were a little more that 10% of people with such opinion. On the other hand 17% called ecological situation “comparatively favourable” in 2002, and in 2004 the percent raised to 26%. Is it possible that ecological situation in Ukraine has actually improved?!
Nowadays the Green Party's support has been gaining negative momentum, that won’t let it not only get to parliament, but also won’t ensure decent results in municipal elections.
At the same time the situation for the green movement is favourable enough – trouble is brewing up inside the camp of the political forces in power. Extraordinary hopes set on Yuschenko and those who have come to power together with him obviously won’t be justified. And it means that the voters, extremely active at this stage, will have to search for ideological alternative.
At the same time current opposition can’t occupy this niche – society really needs new faces and new principles of political struggling, the elector demands political responsibility, something which is lacking both in authority’s and opposition’s actions today.
Past presidential election have proved that there must be strong personal constituent in political struggle – because struggle is not only on ideological level, but on personal level as well.
The Greens lose in this part, too: it failed to offer society new bright faces during the 5-year-long stay in the parliament and the 3 years outside Verkhovna Rada.
The Green Party of Ukraine needs renovation – otherwise the idea of green political movement itself may be discredited for a long time. For the sake of preservation of party and ideology even election can be lost for the second time. The main goal is identification (the most important is self-identification) on ideological level, perception of their own mission and task.