Yulia Tymoshenko finally regained control of her own party

Photo: Reuters

The Batkivshchyna party fully got rid of the people of Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Oleksandr Turchynov in its management bodies by changing its structure and statute. However, former allies in the party are in for a long process of the division of the party property.

Functioning by statute

Yesterday, the Batkivshchyna party held the second stage of its 13th congress in a closed regime during which it decided to change the structure of the party. As people’s deputy Andriy Pavlovskiy (Batkivshchyna) told Capital, a decision was made to re-instate the administrative structure that functioned up until the party’s merger with the Front for Change party headed by Arseniy Yatsenyuk. “We returned to functioning according to a well-tested structure. We hope that better coordinated decisions will have an immediate impact on organizations in the regions. This is imperative in the heat of the election race,” Pavlovskiy noted.

As such, a decision was made to liquidate the central headquarters of the party, which over the past year was headed by VR Speaker Oleksandr Turchynov. Now an executive committee will fulfill the functions of the headquarters. Also, a decision was made to reduce the number of members of the party’s political council, its presidium and the deputies of the party’s leader.

“In the past, followers of Yatsenyuk should have become members of the party and the structure was built in such a way that the party would function in the absence of Tymoshenko. Now, we have been forced to downsize the number of administrative bodies as many vacancies have appeared in the political council,” deputy of the Kyiv City Council Volodymyr Bondarenko (Batkivshchyna) told Capital.

People’s deputy Oleksandra Kuzhel (Batkivshchyna) told Capital that the party made a decision to return to the previous edition of its statute. In particular, changes envisage the liquidation of the post of speaker of the political council, which was created in June 2013 specifically for the current premier. In this position Yatsenyuk basically became the leader of the party in the absence of Tymoshenko. The head of the political council, under the new charter, earned the right to represent Batkivshchyna in talks inside the country and abroad, manage the parliamentary faction and influence the policy of regional organizations. Now, all these functions have been returned to Tymoshenko. In the event of her absence, the first deputy head of the party will manage the party according to the statute.

“Yesterday, Ivan Kyrylenko was appointed the first deputy head of the party and the executive secretary of the party,” said Pavlovskiy. The former vice premier of the agro-industrial complex hails from the same region as Tymoshenko and is in the inner circle of her allies. As a reminder, in June 2013 the Front for Change decided to merge with Batkivshchyna through liquidation. During the merger process Yatsenyuk’s people were transferred to the party’s political council and its presidium. But at the end August 2014, Yatsenyuk and Turchynov failed to reach an agreement with Tymoshenko on the format of running in the early parliamentary elections. They formed their own pre-election project People’s Front, which a number of prominent members of Batkivshchyna and several regional organizations joined.

The divorce is dragging on

The fact that Tymoshenko has gained control over the party does not necessarily mean that the dispute between the former political allies has been resolved. A source in the inner circle of Oleksandr Turchynov told Capital that the divvying up of the assets between Batkivshchyna and the People’s Front continues.

“After we left, Batkivshchyna tried to make it look as though all that was gained from joint efforts would remain with the party. But later the process of divvying up assets began,” said one source of the publication. He refused to specify which assets are the subject of this matter, noting only that objects of the party’s property are on this list. The source also informed that such a partition of property has ruffled the feathers of many members of Batkivshchyna. “Tymoshenko’s defense attorney Serhiy Vlasenko said he is very critical about this situation.” Unfortunately, Capital could not get a comment from Vlasenko as his telephone was turned off.

People’s deputy Volodymyr Yavorivskiy (Batkivshchyna) confirmed for Capital that this is indeed a controversial issue. “But it will be resolved. We are intelligent people that can resolve such issues in an intelligent way,” Yavorivskiy believes.

Tymoshenko’s PR move

Yesterday the Batkivshchyna party also approved the decision to strike seven majoritarian candidates from the election list. “We struck them from the list in favor of other democratic forces and are expecting from them similar steps for the sake of a single candidate,” said Kuzhel.

At the same time, a source of Capital in the headquarters of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc (PPB) said the decision of the congress of Batkivshchyna is a PR move. “These candidates did not have any chances for victory, even for third place,” the source said, adding that as of Sunday there were no solid agreements with the People’s Front, which the evening before announced its readiness to agree to a single candidate in the constituencies. Member of the political council of the People’s Front party Viktoria Syumar also confirmed for Capital that so far no agreements have been reached.

As a reminder, October 13 is the deadline set by the Central Election Commission for parties to remove their candidates from the elections in single-mandate constituencies.