Vitaliy Klitschko is trying to reboot the UDAR party

Photo: Ukrainian photo

UDAR is starting the preparations for the local elections that are scheduled to be held next year. Proponents of Vitaliy Klitschko are forced to speed up the process as internal conflicts and failure to run in the elections this year independently led to a drop in ratings and the outflow of party members.

Poor results

On Saturday the second forum of deputies of the UDAR party was held in Kyiv during which they made a decision to run in the next local elections independently. Mayor of Kyiv and leader of the UDAR party Vitaliy Klitschko called for serious preparations to the elections.

Member of UDAR Natalya Novak, who was elected to the Verkhovna Rada on the list of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc (PPB), said that the results of all the elections in which the party ran in 2014 were analyzed during the forum. She said the fact that UDAR was not represented in the parliamentary elections independently had a significant impact on the party’s ratings. “Now we have to count our ranks and continue building the party as next year there will be no time left for this as preparations for the elections are under way,” she told Capital.

Novak noted that the Chair of the Central Executive Committee of the party Vitaliy Kovalchuk did not participate in the forum. In his place, leader of the UDAR group of deputies in the PPB faction Taras Kutoviy attended the forum.

Another representative of UDAR in the Verkhovna Rada Yehor Firsov (PPB) told Capital that Kovalchuk was “alienated long ago” from the leadership of the party. Kutoviy said that the latter failed to fulfill the task of party building and achieving a rating of 18%. “Today, the party’s rating is less than 10%, which is why it is re-booting. All staffing decisions will be made at the party’s congress, which should be held in the nearest days,” he confirmed.

Several members of UDAR told Capital on condition of anonymity that internal sociological surveys presented at the forum showed that the support of the party’s electorate dropped to 4%. An exit of party members is also being observed. “Active members of the party are not getting any concrete signals that the party will continue to exist and develop. People have begun to orient themselves on the People’s Front and are tracking the processes around the Solidarnist party of Petro Poroshenko,” one source told Capital.

According to his information, over the past several months regional organizations conducted a re-attestation of the party’s members. As a result, in certain regions a third of the party’s members did not confirm their readiness to stay with the UDAR party. “There are regions where the outflow is 50%,” the source specified.

According to information that Capital possesses, the outflow of members from the UDAR party began after the presidential elections during which Klitschko refused to run in favor of Poroshenko. Over that time, the heads of the administrations in the Volyn, Rivne, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil oblasts were replaced. Election of a new head of administration in the Kharkiv oblast was also announced. The situation was aggravated by the conflict between Klitschko and Kovalchuk that arose during the compilation of a joint electoral list with the Solidarnist party. Capital’s source said in this dispute the president took the side of Kovalchuk, who could earn the post of vice premier in the new government.

Mayor’s jealousy

Klitschko denies that his relations with the PPB have gone sour, as well as the internal conflicts of the party. “Our party is a monolith that has clear-cut principles and criteria. Anything aside from that is mere speculation. The team is a united political force,” Klitschko assured.

Novak says the party’s membership fell only due to the number of party deputies that won seats in the Verkhovna Rada on the list of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and were forced to suspend their membership in UDAR. Be that as it may, she does not rule out that certain deputies will turn down an offer to rejoin the party. “First and foremost, they may orient themselves towards the pro-presidential and the premier’s parties that are always a priority for certain politicians,” Novak presumes.

One of the members of the PPB faction said on condition of anonymity that the congress of the UDAR party could be held in the coming months. She said the party has plans to elect a new leadership that will be oriented towards Klitschko.

The source of Capital predicts that Kutoviy, who is currently the leader of an informal group of UDAR in the PPB, will be given a high position. “The day after the elections Klitschko presented Kutoviy as the future leader of the group of MPs from UDAR. Deputies Artur Palatniy and Oksana Prodan, who are currently considered the main contenders for the new leadership of the party, were appointed Kutoviy’s deputies. A number of deputies, in particular those among sponsors, do not agree with this decision,” the source said.

According to the information that Capital has, today members of UDAR consider the Samopomich party of Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadoviy to be their main opponent at the local elections. “The political force currently represented in the Verkhovna Rada has a strong leader, while the mayor of the nation’s capital is being associated exclusively with failures,” a member of the Klitschko team told Capital.