Just who is Ukraine's opposition?
Ukraine braced for more days, if not weeks, of grim uncertainty on Thursday night, as the highly anticipated opposition-government negotiations failed to bring results.
Three main opposition factions insisted that they will continue to press President Victor Yanukovych on conditions of a聽joint ultimatum, which include demands for his resignation, snap elections, and the repeal of the new anti-protest legislation adopted last week. They鈥檙e also coordinating activities in Ukraine鈥檚 parliament (Rada), and appear jointly on stage to rally supporters. 聽
鈥淭hree things unite us,鈥� prominent opposition leader Vitali Klitschko recently. 鈥淭he first is disagreement with the current economic situation; the second is that we see European integration as the only future for Ukraine, and the third is the struggle against the current authoritarian regime.鈥�
Yet despite the outward insistence on unity, the opposition is comprised of several separate strands whose different leanings and platforms could strain today鈥檚 unity. Below is a brief summary and some potential fault lines.
All-Ukrainian Union 'Fatherland' ('Batkivshchyna')
Fatherland holds about 20 percent of parliament seats, making it Ukraine鈥檚 second most powerful political group after the governing Party of the Regions. Of all opposition parties, Fatherland鈥檚 legacy traces back most directly to the 2004 Orange Revolution. It was launched in 1999 by Yulia Tymoshenko, icon of the Orange Revolution, ex-premier, and now prisoner jailed on charges of office abuse, which her supporters claim to be the president鈥檚 political retribution for his 2004 defeat. The party has remained unswervingly loyal to Ms. Tymoshenko as symbolic leader since her imprisonment in 2011, defiantly for presidential elections in 2015, despite the fact that she could still be behind bars.
But the party鈥檚 de-facto head is Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a lawyer and economist who heads the faction in the Rada. He has a decorated resume that includes brief stints as聽head of the national bank and minister of economics and foreign affairs, but he lacks Tymoshenko's聽crowd-raising charisma or Mr. Klitschko's physical presence at the microphone.聽
the release of Tymoshenko and others jailed on political grounds, the resignation of the current government, and the revamping of the constitution (in the near term), as well as signing the EU Association Agreement in preparation for ultimate future EU membership and the severing of close trade bonds with Russia (in the longer term).
Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR)
While Fatherland has the largest representation in the parliament among opposition factions, the relatively younger UDAR boasts Ukraine鈥檚 most popular politician. The party鈥檚 surge at the polls since its launch in 2010 has been spurred by the popular appeal of Vitali Klitschko, a world heavyweight boxing champion with a and . Recent opinion polls show that Klitschko in a run-off presidential election if it were held today. The party鈥檚 abbreviation spells out the Ukrainian (and Russian) word for 鈥減unch.鈥�
The party calls for government modernization, an assault on corruption, and the reorientation of Ukraine towards Europe. 聽is to聽鈥渢ransform politics according to fundamental European values鈥� 鈥� which include the rule of law, civil liberties, and dramatically downsized bureaucracy. 聽
Despite the ostensible similarity of their agendas, UDAR and Fatherland have been known to spar over how best to keep the opposition playing field level 鈥� such as when they over nominating common candidates in single-mandate districts.
Svoboda ('Freedom')
This far-right political coalition with a strong nationalistic bent is led by Oleh Tyahnybok and has recently enjoyed a dramatic resurgence at the polls. Driven by the loathing of the East, the unites calls for immediate withdrawal from all Russia-led organizations and membership in both the聽EU and NATO with openly racist and homophobic views: its program openly demands the introduction of ethnicity-based Ukrainian citizenship.
The faction consistently draws criticism for its right-wing and anti-Semitic leanings, which had led to Mr. Tyahnybok鈥檚 expulsion from the oppositional Our Ukraine bloc during the Orange Revolution. The faction weathered several years of political obscurity before mounting in the October 2012 parliamentary election, when it won 10 percent of the national vote. Its power base is primarily in the country鈥檚 Ukrainian-speaking regions to the west, although Kiev registered a startlingly high level of Svoboda support in 2012.
Svoboda has stood behind the and the in early December (although other factions participated) and has since to topple Yanukovych.
'Pravy sektor' (Right sector)
This radical-right movement , and has yet to articulate an official platform, choose a single leader, or establish formal headquarters (it is loosely based around Kiev city center). But what it lacks in structure it has made up in visibility over the past weeks. Its stick-wielding, stone-throwing supporters 鈥� many of them drawn from the often violent world of soccer fandom, according to the BBC 鈥� are thought to have played a key role in the clashes with the police and the recent escalation of violence. Its organizers have if the opposition鈥檚 demands are not swiftly met.
The movement fervently opposes integration with Russia and participation in any Moscow-led organizations, including the proposed customs union. But it likewise takes aim at the EU, which it says degrades the strength of participating nations, and is angling instead
The tenuous bond between Right Sector supporters, on the group鈥檚 page on the Russian social networking website Vkontakte, and the mainstream coalition is already giving way. When Vitali Klitscko attempted to pacify Right Sector鈥檚 street combatants on Sunday, he got his , before the angry crowd barreled toward nearby riot police lines.
