Our Ukraine-People’s Self-defense (OUPS) is de facto off the political map. It wasn’t new when on the first day of the last session week, my colleague Volodymyr Stretovych certified the death of our bloc that unifies nine parties attributing the blame for this to the leader of the bloc, Vyacheslav Kyrylenko. Is Mr. Kyrylenko the only one to be blamed for this? No, he is not. He is alone simply unable to cause such severe damage. By the time he became a leader of the bloc, OUPS resembled a once beloved vase which had been broken by its master into two large pieces (Our Ukraine and the democratic bloc of OUPS), one smaller piece (Yediny Tsentr [United Center]) and several smaller pieces (Kolomoysky group, Sobor, Anatoliy Gritsenko individually).

We see that chaos and nonsense are now constant company of the bloc, which – without any exaggeration – used to be the most democratic faction consisting of the most flamboyant politicians of our country. Today, the bloc holds no general meetings since its leader is avoiding them, the bloc is conducting no single policy since virtually all its members conflict with Yediny Tsentr, the bloc makes no analysis or conclusions, but only criticizes the actions of the government, which is one-half comprised of the officials appointed by the honorary head of Our Ukraine [Viktor Yushchenko].

The illness was not treated although the symptoms had appeared practically in the first day of work of the newly-fledged parliament, because not all understood that it was necessary to take care of the bloc’s health the same way as any normal creature takes care of its well being.

Anamnesis

Despite the fact that the OUPS’s election program has already disappeared from the bloc’s Internet site, its two lead-messages are stuck in the people’s minds: “All are equal before the law” and “Let’s rescind immunity for deputies.” As far as I can recall, the entire program was not too bad. However, all its points, excepting the one on immunity abrogation, were forgotten. The attempts of your obedient servant to remind his colleagues of the other promises given to the people caused sarcastic smiles to appear on the faces of more experienced politicians: “Take it easy, you are still young, you’ll get used to it.” They were not really interested in fulfilling their promises since the game had already started.

Actually, the cracks in the bloc’s structure appeared in the first days of the Verkhovna Rada’s work. Then it became clear that one more promise given to the voters about the unity of all democratic forces and creation of the coalition with BYuT was very hard to fulfill since a group of seven MPs refusing to sign the agreement on the formation of democratic coalition had cropped up. Later on, most of them entered a new party named Yediny Tsentr, which was practically created by Viktor Baloha [head of the Presidential Secretariat]. It was the party that split Our Ukraine. Only the President’s understanding of the fact that it was not possible to create any alternative coalition due to an insufficient amount of mandates allowed for the creation of the coalition that politicians had promised during the 2007 parliamentary elections.

From the inception of joint work, the Presidential Secretariat attacked the government and the Prime Minister, who kept her patience and didn’t respond until September. Meanwhile, the fight between Our Ukraine and Yediny Tsentr for certain positions dragged on. Yediny Tsentr tried to deprive Our Ukraine of the party organizations in the regions. Even the withdrawal of two MPs from the bloc (one of which was Yuriy But, member of People’s Self-defense) and President Yushchenko’s appeals to cling together could hardly contribute to consolidation of the bloc. A protracted conflict had gradually arisen between the People Self-defense and the head of the Presidential Secretariat, who mostly talked and refused to listen to the opinions of others during those few meetings held by the bloc.

Incidentally, everything had become clear by the end of the last summer: Bankovaya [Kyiv’s street where the Presidential Secretariat is located] has changed its priorities. Its representatives preferred to communicate with Kolesnikov and Akhmetov rather than with the first person on OUPS’s list, Yuriy Lutsenko. None of the MPs was happy about this except for Yediny Tsenr, which made no secret of its intention to cooperate with a “similar to it” group of the Party of Regions.

August brought news about the Presidential Secretariat actively working on the creation of a coalition comprised of OUPS, the Party of Regions and Lytvyn Bloc. However, it didn’t come to pass as BYuT had beaten them to the punch. The Georgian crisis and the refusal of BYuT to accuse the Russians of aggression against Georgia as well the joint voting of BYuT with the Party of Regions gave Bankovaya grounds to accuse their partners from the coalition of betrayal (by the way, Our Ukraine and Yediny Tsentr are now doing the same). In that situation, Yushchenko needed Vyacheslav Kyrylenko even more than Yediny Tsentr, because Kyrylenko enjoyed the support of the majority from Our Ukraine and the Ukrainian National Party of Yuriy Kostenko, and Yediny Tsentr was ready to support the dissolution of the coalition anyway. Afterwards, using telephone voting and having received the blessing of the President of Ukraine, the coalition of democratic forces was destroyed. That event split OUPS since the votes for the coalition and against it were almost even.

Attempts to improve the situation were made in vain - negotiations on the revival of the coalition failed for many reasons. All comprises and concessions made by BYuT could not change the stance of the OUPS leaders and the President, who issued his directives. The unwillingness of Kyrylenko to hold the bloc’s meetings because of his fears that some unfavorable for Bankovaya decisions might be made led to the final fracture within OUPS. The split of Our Ukraine-People’s Self-defense bloc was a direct consequence of the destruction of the democratic coalition and the policy conducted by the Presidential Secretariat regarding MPs.

Diagnosis

From the first post-election days, the honorary leader of OUPS Viktor Yushchenko demonstrated his unwillingness to consolidate with BYuT. At the same time, Our Ukraine-People’s Self-defense bloc signaled that it did not want to consolidate with anybody from the East. Therefore, the President agreed to the unavoidable consolidation with BYuT, but did not completely abandon this angle. The systematic work of the Presidential Secretariat directed on disintegration of OUPS paid off – a group of MPs devoted solely to the President was formed inside the bloc. This group unflinchingly supports the President in all his actions. Even in matters of political suicide like the early elections, joint actions with the Party of Regions and so on. This group consists of about thirty people.

The formal leader of the bloc, Vyacheslav Kyrylenko, is one of them. He doesn’t make any independent decisions, strictly hewing to President Yushchenko’s directives, even if they are pernicious for the country. There are also about ten MPs who waver. They are able to think independently but are not ready to change their priorities – from being devoted to the President to being devoted to the country. The rest of OUPS is a so called democratic bloc of OUPS which consist of 34 MPs able to act independently. They might destroy the plans of the Presidential Secretariat, although they haven’t showed any positive results yet. Their main problem is disorganization. There are several flamboyant political leaders among them and this is exactly what hampers them from distinguishing a single leader and from carrying out effective actions.

Conclusion

We can now forget about the unity of OUPS. The only possible option is to replace Kyrylenko with a more independent politician. This requires a majority of votes inside the bloc. Nevertheless, there is a chance to do this. We will see how realistic the chance is next week. It is more important that there is no leader who is 1) eager and 2) able to propose an efficient rehabilitation plan among the members of the bloc. Even if the leader of the bloc is replaced and a majority is formed, the revival of a united OUPS will be blocked by the Presidential Secretariat. Lytvyn won’t be able to help – his 20 votes are not enough in this case. That’s why it is very doubtful that it will be possible to gather the 226 MPs necessary for the coalition agreement to be signed. All this would be more realistic if the first number on the OUPS list Yuriy Lutsenko remained in the parliament. He could be the new head of the bloc, but as an incumbent minister, the law prohibits him from becoming an MP.

OUPS won’t be able to take part in any alternative coalition as the majority of the bloc is against allying with the Party of Regions. The absolute most that our bloc is currently capable of is to participate in a non-aggression pact with a number of political forces. Today, when Ukraine is enduring a deep economic crisis, such a pact is of great necessity to our country. Theoretically, Ukrainian politicians should emulate wild animals: when there is a fire in the forest, they don’t gnaw at each other. However, this is just a theory. The patient is unviable and needs to be buried without any flowers or tears in order to let new roots take hold.