Taras Kuzio’s Blog

Groundhog Day

Observing Ukrainian politics since the 2006 elections I have come to the conclusion that Ukraine resembles the mythical town in the 1993 film Groundhog Day (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107048/). This was confirmed even more by a good article in today’s Ukraina moloda (http://www.umoloda.kiev.ua/number/770/113/28025/), which says: “Сталося. «Наша Україна» нарешті припинила розриватися між двома берегами й… Ні, до жодного з них іще так Ñ– не пристала. Але принаймні подрейфувала у відповідному напрямку. Нібито. Бо чомусь у здатність цієї політичної сили справді ухвалити якесь конкретне рішення Ñ– поставити у перманентному переговорному процесі крапку вже ніхто не вірить. Тому, мабуть, Ñ– нам ставити крапку поки що зарано. Краще звучатиме так: чи сталося?”

In Groundhog Day, the comedian actor Bill Murray plays Phil Collins, an arrogant, self-centred and cynical television cameraman sent to the Pennsylvania town of Punxsutawney to cover the groundhog ceremony held annually in February. Collins stumbles into a time warp and each day is the same.

Ukraine is like the Groundhog Day. Each day I check the internet to see the latest news from Ukraine and hope to find something new or changed. Instead, we have the same arguments, indecision, mud slinging and in-fighting.

As Ukraina Moloda write, Our Ukraine resembles Groundhog Day more than anybody else. They took credit for holding free elections but refused to accept the results which were that they had come in third and lost to the PRU and BYUT. Since then we have had 3 months of Our Ukraine negotiating with its Orange partners and with PRU. Both coalitions failed. Then Our Ukraine negotiated for 2 months with the Anti Crisis coalition. This also failed. Now, Our Ukraine is planning to negotiate with the opposition.

What is there to negotiate about? Our Ukraine has 81 deputies and BYUT 129 and therefore Our Ukraine is the minority party in the opposition.

Our Ukraine as Groundhog Day re-appears when I read that Our Ukraine is still uncertain about whether it actually in opposition?! This is nothing new – Our Ukraine could not decide this question in 2002-2003 and swayed back and forth between Arise Ukraine! and joining pro-Kuchma centrists in a coalition. The demand then was for them to eject the SDPUo, today it is for the ACC to eject the Communists. All of this is highly unproductive and acutely embarrassing inside and outside Ukraine (I am writing this blog from a Harvard Ukrainian Institute symposium “Clockwork Orange: Ukraine’s Democratic Revolution Comes Full Circle?”, http://www.huri.harvard.edu/).

Our Ukraine’s latest poll is 6%, down from 14% in the elections and 24% in 2002. The NDP was a failed party of power in the second half of the 1990s. What then is Our Ukraine? Any ideas?