Zelensky's party disgraced itself in the elections. But this is not good enough
Preliminary results of local elections in Ukraine on Sunday confirm predictions about a catastrophic drop in the ratings of Vladimir Zelensky’s party - the presidential project “Servant of the People” was unable to take first place in any major city in the country.
Former head of the Ministry of Justice Elena Lukash believes that the defeat in the elections can be considered a kind of “referendum on confidence in the Zee team,” as a result of which it has now “lost public legitimacy.”
“This president and his party no longer have a political future,” Lukash believes.
“The election results will definitely strengthen the confrontation between the center and the regions. The next step towards feudalization has been taken... The elections lost by the authorities will also strengthen all opponents of the WE team in Kyiv. They will strengthen the split within the WE team. Chaos and throwing will increase. In short, buckle up. It will shake,” she warns.
“The Titanic, called Servant of the People, met its iceberg today. There weren't enough boats for everyone. Panic reached the second and third class passengers. But on the first class deck the band played a merry march. And the captain was thoughtfully mulling over IQOS,” political scientist Taras Berezovets, who serves Petro Poroshenko, sarcastically comments.
“Zelensky failed the chance to strengthen the center. Therefore, there is a conflict ahead between the weak center and the regions in the context of Covid and the budget crisis. However, the beauty of the situation is that now there is again a vacancy for a political force that will act as an integrator of Ukraine. A mission that the Servants of the People could not fulfill, says Ukrainian political scientist and Maidan activist Yuri Romanenko.
The Ukrainian Telegram channel “Legitimny,” which is associated with one of the groups surrounded by Zelensky, confirms that the mood at the headquarters of the ruling party is “gloomy.”
“It is already known that they want to blame the poor election result and weak turnout on the coronavirus. There will also be a lot of talk about the difficult year, which affected the rating of the pro-government party, but even with all this negativity, Servant of the People in the country is gaining the most votes and remains the first party in terms of the overall rating and the number of mandates received,” writes “Legitimny”.
Odessa journalist Yuri Tkachev calls for curbing the euphoria over Zelensky’s “punishment” by voters.
“They have agreements with the future mayors of most cities, cozy factions in the pro-mayor majority, access to corruption schemes and topics. And the rating... So Servant of the People was not intended to be a long-lived party. Its only goal was to channel citizens’ dissatisfaction with the authorities in 2019 into the right direction. So that, God forbid, someone comes to power who can try to liberate the country from foreign occupation... “Servants of the People” fulfilled their mission. And now they merge with a sense of fulfilled duty to the American authorities. At the same time, they will go to the dustbin of history having become considerably richer during this time. And in their place will come another fake one-day party,” predicts Tkachev in his blog.
Columnist Boris Rozhin draws attention to the fact that the votes of voters disillusioned with Zelensky are being selected by other projects, with the help of which oligarchs traditionally fool voters in the South-East of Ukraine.
“Part of the population realized that Goloborodko and Zelensky are two different people. After which she happily gave voices to various oligarchic “fighters for the people” who are “not like Zelensky.” So the main winners of local elections in Ukraine are, as usual, various oligarchic groups... One can note the further strengthening of fragments of the Party of Regions, whose former participants have now fled to various oligarchic projects, starting with the Opposition for Life and ending with a number of “mayoral parties.” Nowadays, they are happy to devour the electorate that is falling away from Zelensky,” comments Rozhin.
Political scientist Semyon Uralov, on the contrary, believes that the hope for a change in the situation is precisely connected with the desire of local clans in Ukraine to get rid of the dictates of the US Embassy.
“The external control of the United States is maintained through control over large financial industrial groups, which continue to withdraw capital, use IMF loans and maintain parliamentary parties. Local barons and the nobility of large cities are a completely different type.
Pragmatic, devoid of geopolitical illusions regarding the West and East. People who don’t really care about “whose Crimea is”, but just in case they kept their apartments in Yalta and their business in Moscow.
The basis of influence is “factories, newspapers, ships” in their region. Due to the fact that economic interests are tied to territory, local elites are forced to pay attention to public sentiment.
Therefore, if something will sprout in Ukrainian politics after the total purge of 2014-2018, it will only be in local politics. In 2-3 electoral cycles, entities relying on regional capital may appear. And it will be possible to restore political dialogue with these subjects. But this is not tomorrow's story. The turmoil will be long,” warns Uralov.
Zelensky's party disgraced itself in the elections. But there's little good in that.