Democratic Alliance is one of the newly created political parties, which will take part in the Parliamentary elections fro the first time. However, the team of this party has been created long time ago within the framework of the NGO of the same name. What made them change civil sector into political one? We decided to ask Serhii Honchar, the Head of Cherkasy oblast organization of the Democratic Alliance party about their aim, beginning of political activity and methods of work with the voters.
What became an impetus for Democratic Alliance to go into politics?
Probably, it happened because the Democratic Alliance has grown up. The organization is 17 years old and it was and remains one of the strongest organizations in the civil sector. However, because of the cataclysms in the government and because of those who we chose and how we chose, is becomes obvious that it is impossible to develop the country by exclusively using the instruments of civil activism. If civil activism provides a small change of rules, then we got into a situation, when it is not so much needed to change the rules, but to change the team, which will be able to change them. To my point of view,Ukraine has not faced yet the real elections. It was rebranding of the government. The latter was creating a new project, promoting it, with it help it was entering into the new government and losing its ratings. Next, it started promoting a new project, changing again, and it could last endlessly. During 20 years the government and opposition were just changing places. And they cannot do anything. Not because they don't want to, but because they are not able to.
There are different opinions on whether the NGOs should go into politics. It can level the civil sector as such and everyone will conceive of civil activity as stepping stone to the political one.
I do not understand who has pressed the idea that civil activists do not go into politics. It is obvious that in between the elections everyone is engaged in civil activity, works in the direction of his competence. But when the elections start it is the civil activists who are the most active in society. There are idea leaders and a lot of things depend on them. I think that every NGO has to create its voter's map, which would show the laws (which are connected to NGO's sphere of competence) initiated by a certain political party and which laws it voted for during the in between period. And if the NGO has their own opinion about each party, then the accountability of the government will increase.
At the moment we face a situation when every voter should follow the activity of each deputy and at the same time the NGOs are inactive in this sphere. For example, if we have Coalition for tobacco free Ukraine then they should clearly know which parties are involved in the lobby of tobacco industry and which parties or deputies support the organization. Thus, the Coalition could clearly say that this party made a lot for the positive result, and that party works against them. And when all authoritative NGOs express their opinions, then the accountability of the government will be higher. And it is already a direct involvement in the election process.
Nowadays no one controls the government. It is too early to hope that every person will process a big amount of information. That is why the NGOs should perform this duty. In a situation when the level of trust to the NGOs is higher than that to political parties, the civil leaders should have their own opinion. Therefore, it is impossible to say that the civil sector should be aside of politics. An NGO is created to protect the rights and interests of a certain group of people, and this protection in any case comes to politics, lobbying or change of laws.
Does your political party mainly consist of the representatives of the old team? Or probably there are new people?
Surely the conversion from the NGO into a political party resulted in small transformations of the team. For example, some of our colleagues considered themselves as purely civil activists and did not want to go into politics. But due to our transformation new leaders, who see themselves in politics, joined our party.
Have you already formed the team, which will take part in the elections?
At the moment we are in process. We joined our efforts with Vidkrytyi prostir (Open space). Surely it will influence the voting list and structure of our team. And it is too early to talk about a completely formed list. We are the first authoritative NGO, which went into politics, and a lot of strong civil activists join us at the moment. We join out efforts with different NGOs. The process is very active and that is why it is hard to talk about the future list now.
Do you have the representative all over Ukraine?
I will not say that we have hundreds or thousands of people. But those people who are already in our team are very capable and active.
What are you going to start with if you get to the Parliament?
We are not going to start because we are working already fro 17 years. The fact that we are in politics does not change our previous positions, which are based on christian democratic values. We understand that we will not have the majority in the Parliament during these elections and that our presence in the Parliament will give us just more tools and opportunities to do what we were doing before and what everybody sees. At the moment the main issue we are working on is fighting against corruption. It is obvious that you cannot achieve a lot just with help of fighting. We can only save money and direct it on the development of the country. Thus, we need a platform to support business (and we already have it), we need to create rules equally applicable to all entrepreneurs. That is why we joined with the Open Space and the Association of small and middle business.
What is the minimum that you plan to reach during the elections?
We understand that we cannot form the majority. Thus, at the moment our aim is to get over the 5% barrier. So your aim during these elections is to get to the Parliament with a small team.
Is it possible that your candidates will assimilate with time?
No, we are confident in our team. With the majority we work together for a long time and everyone was checked by time and different situations.
You are gathering funds from the voters during quite a long period of time? What is the aim of doing this?
In Ukraine the government, which transforms from one cadence to another, decided to secure itself from the emergence of new parties and new faces. That is why they established a barrier of 220 000 UAH. Surely, honest and respectable people cannot easily gather such amount of money. They made this step in order to secure themselves from any change in the government. But we decided that there is no one else except of us who could unite the people and move to changes. First, we started to gather money from our acquaintances and close people. Now we went to the streets and gather the money for deposit from all those who support us.
Your party is not represented in advertising. How did that happen?
We are collecting money for a deposit and at the moment it is the issue of the highest priority. Certainly we invest our own money, ask for public support. Moreover, we are financed only form the member fees, because no oligarch was or will be funding us. Thus, we cannot afford ourselves luxurious advertisements similar to those of the parties, which are stealing the budget money or working on the oligarchs. Paid advertising is out of reach for us.
So how do you communicate with the voters?
In the evenings you can meet us on the bus stops. There we talk with our voters, popularize our activity; distribute the newspapers, which can be printed for a considerable price. Internet and personal communication are the things we can afford.
What is the Democratic Alliance afraid of the most during these elections?
We are not afraid of anything but falsification.
Reference:
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.