Although officially the election campaign in Ukraine starts on July 30, political powers of Lviv region are not shy to organize electioneering events and mobilize the future electorate by “stirring up” some topics. The long-term observers of the Civil Network OPORA know which party was the most active in the region during July.
The most salient political players in oblast remain All-Ukrainian union Svoboda and United opposition Fatherland, on the one hand, and the Party of Regions, on the other hand. The former try to show their potential voters the failures of the current government and persuade them that they themselves do their best to prevent the language bill from being passed. In turn, the members of the Party of Regions reject all the claims of their opponents and try to persuade their voters in “stability” and “prosperity”. In July the main topics of election campaign in Lviv region were the language bill, organization of transparent and fair elections, and popularization of achievements of the central government.
In July the main topics of election campaign in Lviv region were the language bill, organization of transparent and fair elections, and popularization of acheivements of the central government
Language whirl
Surely, in Ukrainian speaking Lviv oblast it is easy to mobilize the electorate around the issue of threat to the official language. This is exactly what the opposition actors are doing in the region. Early in this month – July 4 – they organized a rally against the language bill in front of Lviv Oblast State Administration and Lviv City Council. The symbols of Front of Change, United opposition Fatherland, as well as the flags of All-Ukrainian Union Svoboda, were used during the event. It was the members of Svoboda – Iryna Farion and Iryna Sekh – who were fueling the protest the most, both from the platform located under the building of Oblast Administration and from the TV screens. Separately, the observers noticed the symbols of possible majoritatian candidate from the Front of Change or from the United opposition - Ihor Vasiunyk. After the rally was over, the tents with the party symbols of the Fatherland were still near the buildings of City Council and Oblast Administration.
Afterwards, the united opposition created “a fan-zone of Ukrainian language” near themonumentofTaras Shevchenko. Regular tents, campaign tents, and flags of political parties are present on the territory of the “fan zone”. As part of the protest, the representatives of the United opposition wanted to block the international highways for 30 minutes on July 5. The blocked highway parts included Zymna Voda (Shehyni), Hriada (Rava-Ruska), Riasne-Ruska (Krakivets), and Skole city (part of Kyiv-Chop highway). Other actions included: blocking of the State Administration (joint action with All-Ukrainian Union Svoboda), demonstrative eviction of the employees of Oblast State Administration situated onVynnychenko Street, collection of signatures in support of Ukrainian language in Lviv and Lviv oblast.
After the language bill was passed the Party of Regions found itself in a complicated circumstances. This turn of events could cause the party’s approval ratings decline on the terrains of Ukrainian speaking oblast. Thus, oblast key political players were forced to invent wily combinations and maneuvers to dissociate themselves from the negative situation. For example, the Head of oblast organization of the Party of Regions immediately withdrew his vote, saying that he was not even present in the voting hall. The main bulk of statements and activities of the political power was focused on popularization of the achievements of the current government. Namely, the party representatives were advertizing the success of Euro-2012, record grain crops in Lviv oblast, recovery in the banking system. Also, a number of appeals and statements were addressing the opposition representatives, who were protesting the language bill. The Party of Region’s spokesmen called to stop the unnecessary debates and to take care of the regional development in Lviv oblast.
The Governor and his Deputies by all means tried to avoid any direct answers. Finally, Oblast State Administration produced a neutral letter, commenting the situation around the language bill. The letter included the following statements: “we jointly think that the language should serve to strengthen the unity of Ukrainian people” and “only Ukrainian people can give the best evaluation of the language bill”.
Language issue aside
Not all political powers used the language bill to attract attention of the voters and their mobilization. Although, the activity of the UDAR significantly increased during the month, the party was not pushing on to use the language issue in their PR campaign. Mainly, they were keeping aside of the opposition performance. However, the party representatives made a number of critical statements against the President, the Government and the political powers. During July they based popularization of their party on the issues of fair elections, transparency of the voter lists and scrupulous candidate selection. In order to keep to the given policy, the UDAR party was first in Lviv region to accept the demands of Civic movement “Chesno” and forwarded the information about their candidates to its representatives.
The policy of transparency and fairness of the election process can be traced in the statement of July19, inwhich representatives of the UDAR party called all nongovernmental organizations of Lviv region to facilitate the track down and spread of information on the issues of vote buying and unfair election campaign of the candidates. They also asked NGOs to call people to make voting a matter of conscience.
The Communist Party of Ukraine was another political party, which consciously distanced itself from the language issue. During the last month the party’s activity was limited to only one statement. In this statement the First secretary of Shevchenko regional committee of the CPU in Lviv city asks the Ministry of Defence ofUkraineto solve the problem with Lviv Radio Engineering Research Institute State Enterprise. According to the statement Ministry owes the enterprise 15 million UAH for the order made two years ago. It was the only sign of activity of Lviv organization of CPU during the last month.
At the moment other political powers are not active in their work with electorate and are probably waiting for the start of election campaign. Currently only three headquarters of political parties are working in oblast: United opposition Fatherland (the Head - Stepan Kubiv, the Head of Front of Change oblast organization); the Party of Regions (the Head – Roman Redko, the Deputy of Kyiv Oblast Council); and the UDAR party (the Head – Petro Adamyk, the UDAR party member).
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Civic monitoring conducted by OPORA - is a type of network activity, aimed at impartial assessment of the preparation and conduct of elections, as well as preventing violations through comprehensive civic action. Professional monitoring at all stages of the election process indirectly influences the quality of the campaign. The public opinion, both foreign and domestic is formed through gathering and spreading of information among the target audience. From a strategic perspective public monitoring of elections focuses upon improving the system and certain procedures. In 2012, during Parliamentary elections in Ukraine OPORA implements a large-scale campaign of long- and short term observation, organizes a statistical vote-count by the results of voting with the proportional component of the electoral system on a basis of representative selection, will provide 100% coverage of polling stations by observers in separate single-mandate majoritarian districts. OPORA observers will work in all 225 electoral districts, and 3,500 activists will join them on the voting day. Organization will use the latest means of spreading information on observation results, including infographics and interactive maps.