In Kharkiv region the defense of Ukrainian and Russian languages is almost the hottest topic during the last month. "Language" sector became a scene of activity for the main political parties.
According to the last sociological research from 30 to 40 % of the voters, who will come to the Parliamentary elections 2012 in Kharkiv region, have not decided yet on the issue of their political affiliations. The electorate moved to the complete distrust both to government and to opposition. In the circumstances, when almost all traditional factors of electoral support (social, economic, regional) change into uncertainties, the language becomes all but the last marker of the electoral divide.
Probably the language issue is the most important tool to distinguish electorate for the Party of Regions. The latter uses the administrative resource, namely, defines the appropriate agenda during the Sessions of Kharkiv city council and Kharkiv oblast council, organizes the events in favor of the language bill, and prevents the actions against it, in order to popularize this topic among the people.
On July 10 during the 17th extraordinary session, Kharkiv city council approved the Appeal to the President of Ukraine and Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to pass the Law of Ukraine On the Principles of State Language Policy. The main idea of the appeal was to create the conditions, which would enable the realization of constitutional guarantees of free development and use of Russian language in Kharkiv city. 73 deputies voted in favor, two - against. As far as the representatives of oppositional parties were absent during the voting procedure, it became interesting who of the present deputies has violated the "general party line." In order to detect the "enemies within", the Mayor Hennadii Kernes asked the deputies, who has voted against, to stand up. But noone stood up.
On July 25 the appeal regarding the situation, which emerged around the approval of the Law On the Principles of State Language Policy, was passed by Kharkiv oblast council. 107 deputies supported the appeal and 8 were against it.
The Party of Regions was very active in Kharkiv region while launching the action "We want to speak Russian." According to the statement of the First Deputy Head of Kharkiv oblast organization of the Party of Regions Olena Liashko, during the action (June 11 - July 3) around 110 000 of signatures were collected in support of the Law On the Principles of State Language Policy.
According to the data of the State Register of Voters on July 31,2012 in Kharkiv oblast there are 2196066 of voters. It results that 110000 signatures gathered by the Party of Regions constitutes 5% of the existing electorate. In general, 5% of support of this event is a "modest" achievement of the governing party, which in the aforementioned appeal emphasizes that "according to the result of the All-Ukrainian population census in 2001, on the territory of Kharkiv 65,9% of citizens defined Russian as their native language." The numbers look even more modest in the light of the administrative resource, which was used to collect the signatures in the region.
On July 9 Kharkiv oblast organization of the All-Ukrainian Union Svoboda published the information about the pressure on the employees and the trade union committee of the joint-stock company "Kharkivoblenergo" on behalf of its executive managers. As stated in the announcement, the employees were forced to sign the letter to the President in support of the language bill by threats of dismissal.
On July 10 OPORA activists recorded how, in the schools of Komintern and Chervonozavod rayons of Kharkiv, the employees of educational sector asked the citizens of Kharkiv to sign the appeal to the President, while distributing the grocery kits.
On July 18 the local authorities and law enforcement agencies tried to obstruct the creation of tent city on the Liberty square by the United opposition, which was an element of their termless action against the Law On the Principles of State Language Policy that started on July 4. They put obstacles for the activist who wanted to put 5 tents.
For the Communist Party of Ukraine, which traditionally tries to draw over a part of the Party of Regions' electorate, the language issue is an obvious means to increase the support. The position of communists is more radical than that of the Party of Regions, they want Russian to be the second official language.
On July 10 Kharkiv oblast committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine made an action "Two languages - one country." It was made in front of Kharkiv city council, while in the session hall the appeal in support of the language bill was approved. During this event, the First Secretary of Kharkiv oblast committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine and the current People's Deputy Alla Aleksandrovska stated that "the communists are the only ones who truly and consistently fight for Russian language."
Accordingly, the defense of language is the marker of self identification for oppositional parties. Although the local brunches of the All-Ukrainian Union Svoboda, Our Ukraine party and United opposition claim that the language issue is of primary importance because with help of it the government tries to distract people's attention from the catastrophe in economy and social sphere. Nevertheless, they make the organization efforts which do not correspond to their statements. They actively emphasize their stand regarding this issue and launch large-scale campaigns in the language sector.
On July 10 and 25 the local party organizations of the All-Ukrainian Union Svoboda and the United opposition were protesting against the approval of the appeals in support of the language bill by city and oblast administrations. At the same time, on July 25 the representatives of the All-Ukrainian Union Fatherland achieved the roll-call voting in Kharkiv oblast administration "to see who defend which values."
It is absolutely logical that the All-Ukrainian Union Svoboda reacts on this irritant almost automatically. Ukrainian language is an ideological pillar of the party's political position. Since June 5 Kharkiv city organization of the All-Ukrainian Union Svoboda periodically picketed Kharkiv oblast state administration with the demand to put veto on the language bill (the party members took part in the rally on July 2,4,10 and 15).
On July 4, 10 and 25, the representatives of the United opposition were also protesting, although they emphasized that the language issue on the eve of elections is irrelevant.
On July 7-13 a similar action was made by the oblast brunch of the Our Ukraine party. According to the comment of Maksym Kornienko, who was the coordinator of action, the event was not against the use of Russian language but against the language bill as such, which violates the constitutional rights and freedoms of the Ukrainian citizens and misinterprets the norms of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
Conclusions:
In the situation, when economic, social and regional markers of electoral divide are uncertain and, in fact, not functional and when the level of trust to all subjects of the election process decreased, the main method of electorate divide in Kharkiv region used by the political parties is the defense of "their voters" in the language issue.
For the Party of Regions support of the language bill is, first of all, a means to mark their party and administrative dominance in the region. In particular, it is proved by the attacks of the employees of the city executive committee and the instances of illegal dismantlement not only of oppositional tents, connected with the language protests or campaign "Ukraine against Yanukovych", but also of the campaign tents of primaries of Natalia Korolevska's party.
For the Communist Party of Ukraine the language issue is a tool to increase the number of supporters among the Russian speaking part of Kharkiv citizens. The Party of Regions is afraid to cede its electorate in favor of the communists and these fears are supported by the spontaneous irritated reactions of the Head of Kharkiv oblast state administration Mykhailo Dobkin on the activity of the Communist party (at the plenary meeting of Kharkiv oblast council on June 21 he equaled the communists with the members of Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and called them the "small insects").
For Our Ukraine, United opposition and All-Ukrainian Union Svoboda the defense of language inKharkovis a proof of their political position on the national level.
However, the results (namely, the number of collected voices in support of Russian and Ukrainian languages), which were gathered by the parties during the active campaign concerning the Law On the Principles of State Language Policy, show that the hopes of Kharkiv party organizations regarding the role of language issue in the election campaign may not come true.
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.