Svoboda tames radicals to get into parliament

The jump from a marginal western Ukrainian party into parliament happened because of a metamorphosis that took place over the past few years and that accelerated during the campaign. Many of Svoboda’s most radical ideas were tamed, enabling the party to win over voters across the board.

Ihor Zhdanov, head of Vidkryta politika think tank, said he told Svoboda Party leader Oleh Tiahnybok: “You have brand new types of voters, Russian speakers and even Jews.”

Semyon Gluzman, a former Soviet dissident and a prominent voice in the Jewish community, said he has a few Jewish friends who voted for Svoboda. “I think this is a childish emotional reaction to what the government is doing,” Gluzman said. “If the ballots had an ‘against all’ option, the vote would go there.” He said Tiahnybok is “essentially a cynic” and a very pragmatic personality.

Jewish support for Svoboda would be particularly surprising, considering that in 2004 Tiahnybok – then a member of parliament — was kicked out of the Our Ukraine faction for anti-Semitic statements.

There is data to prove the claime of Zhdanov, who worked as a consultant for the United Opposition-Batkivshchyna  Party. The Central Election Commission reported that 24 people with Ukrainian passports voted for Svoboda in Israel.

Billionaire Igor Kolomoisky, an international Jewish leader, also called on Ukrainian Jews “not to panic” because of Svoboda’s victory.

It’s not just anti-Semitism, however, that gives rise to concerns about Svoboda. At least one party member has also made racist remarks. In February, party spokesman Yuriy Syrotiuk said he was unhappy about black singer Gaitana representing Ukraine in the Eurovision song contest because she “is not an organic representative of the Ukrainian culture.”

Despite these concerns, a Democratic Initiatives Foundation exit poll found that Svoboda has the highest percentage of well-educated supporters. Some 48 percent of its voters have a higher education. By comparison, the runner-up among the highly educated, Vitali Klitschko’s Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform Party, drew 38 percent of such voters.

Svoboda’s performance in Kyiv, a predominantly Russian-speaking capital, came as a surprise. Its voters gave the second highest number of votes to Svoboda, after United Opposition Batkivshchyna.

Zhdanov says that voters chose the passion and action behind Svoboda’s leaders, not so much their ideas. As a leader, Tiahnybok, 43, is a charismatic speaker who uses the word “nation” to define Ukraine and praises supporters for “going against the truncheons of Berkut” special police units to defend their votes from election fraud.

If aggressive behavior is to be praised, they have plenty on record.

In July, for example, members of his organization nearly stormed into a building during riots that ensued after approval of the controversial language law that reduced the use of the Ukrainian language. One man wearing a Svoboda T-shirt was photographed spraying Berkut with teargas.

Moreover, Svoboda’s original party platform, on their website for years, advocates free ownership of firearms to “all sane citizens of Ukraine with no history of convictions.”

This is not the only alarming proposal. In the same program, Svoboda declares that it wants to introduce criminal responsibility for Ukrainophobia, as well as for those who erode the nation’s fertile black earth. He would also punish people criminally for abortions, which the party wants to ban, except for medical reasons or in case of rape.

The platform urges a change in legislation to allow only those born in Ukraine to become citizens, and to make exceptions for those who have lived in Ukraine for more than 15 years, know the Ukrainian language, culture and Constitution.

However, most of these radical points vanished from the official election program that Svoboda filed with the CEC this year. In its place, a tamer program was heavy on populist calls for the impeachment of President Viktor Yanukovych and the renunciation of the 2010 Kharkiv agreements that let Russia’s Black Sea Fleet stay in Crimea through 2042. Svoboda also emphasizes the Ukrainian language and culture.

Still there are plenty of controversial items left.

The party’s economic program calls for re-privatization of major enterprises, greater state control of the banking system and a ban on privatization of land. “The key thesis very much reminds of the thesis of the Communist Party,” says Ildar Gazizullin, an economist at the International Centre for Policy Studies. Gazizullin said that in two conversations he has had with Tiahnybok, who has a medical education, the Svoboda leader acknowledged that he was not strong on economic issues.

Valeriya Novodvorskaya, a prominent Russian activist and political commentator, succinctly expressed way why she feels people voted for the party.

“Yes, they have a bad economic program, but nobody will be recruiting ministers from their circle for the economic part of the government,” she said., in a recent video blog. “They know how to hate, they have convictions, and they have a place in the [Verkhovna] Rada. The [ruling pro-presidential] Party of Regions will feel very uncomfortable.”

There are plenty of candidates to make the world uncomfortable.

One of them is Yuriy Mykhalchyshyn, elected in a single-mandate district in Lviv. He seems to embrace Nazi Germany’s murderous presence in Ukraine.

Mykhalchyshyn writes a blog called nachtigal88, with reference to the Nachtigall Battalion formed in Ukraine by the Nazis in 1941. The number 88 is a digital code to the Nazi greeting “Heil Hitler,” according to a common interpretation. The blog contains a number of controversial entries, including acknowledgement by the author in the comment section in 2009 that he has no qualms about being called a fascist.

Another new Svoboda deputy, Iryna Farion, has made headlines for her controversial chauvinistic views in past years. The most recent media scandal took place during the election campaign, when she said those who speak Russian should be fined.

Kost Bondarenko, a political analyst, said that Mykhalchyshyn and Farion are part of the radical wing of Svoboda. He says there are other groupings, too, including a more practical and pragmatic close circle around Tiahnybok that includes Yuriy Ilyenko, a young deputy who won a majority constituency in Kyiv against a local political heavyweight, and Andriy Mokhnyk, who got elected from the party list.

Then there is a mixed group of businesspeople and officials who have had local council seats and won mayoral races in western Ukraine. Bondarenko says it is the tension between these groupings that post a major danger for Svoboda in the future, but not the only one.

Another big question is whether they will be able to live up to their voters’ expectations – not just by providing political counter-balance in parliament, but actually producing laws beneficial for their voters. So far, they have often played a destructive role in local politics in some western Ukrainian communities.

Andriy Sadoviy, the mayor of Lviv, where the majority of the city council belongs to Svoboda, told the Kyiv Post in a July interview that “they consciously vote for decisions that harm the community” because they thrive on the protest vote.

Svoboda’s agenda in parliament remains unclear. It will most likely work with the more moderate oppositional forces of UDAR and Batkivshchyna on some issues. So far, the common agenda of the threesome is concentrated on standing up to the incumbents, curbing massive corruption and police brutality, as well as improving the election system.

There are signs that Tiahnybok is aware of changes in his electoral base. At a TV show on Nov. 5, Tiahnybok said that a quarter of those who voted for his party are not Ukrainians by ethnic background and are Russian speakers.

“I would like to assure you that you will be proud of such deputies as Svoboda members,” he said.

Kyiv Post editor Katya Gorchinskaya can be reached at [email protected].