Yulia Tymoshenko makes a mistake in local elections for the second time. The first time this happened a year ago, when through the efforts of the BYuT faction, early re-election of the Kyiv City Council and the capital's mayor was announced.
After the triumph of Leonid Chernovetsky and the actual failure of BYuT, many predicted the beginning of the end for both Tymoshenko herself and her political force. The opponents' forecasts turned out to be somewhat premature.
Today the incumbent prime minister has made a mistake of a completely different kind. Slightly more than a million people live in Ternopil Oblast. But despite the fact that oblast elections are less significant on a national scale than elections in the capital, the crisis in the state and the low starting point before the presidential elections can turn any false step into fatality.
The irony of the combination that has formed around Ternopil is also that its main participants received their cards by accident, and, as Oleksandr Turchynov admits, "in haste and without careful analysis."
In the autumn of last year, the conflict in the oblast council seemed at first merely a sluggish echo of Yulia Tymoshenko's struggle with the head of the presidential secretariat, Viktor Baloha.
In October of last year, the majority formed in the Ternopil Oblast Council consisting of BYuT, the Socialist Party, and ten KUN deputies who had split from "Our Ukraine," defending their dubious legitimacy, expressed no confidence in Governor Yuriy Chyzhmar.
In response, Mr. Chyzhmar, who headed the election list of "United Centre" in the current elections, appealed to the Verkhovna Rada to appoint early re-elections of the oblast council.
BYuT again, "in haste and without careful analysis," supported the resolution. And a few days later, a rather carefree dialogue took place in Tymoshenko's office on Hrushevsky Street between the premier and one of the faction members, who shared it with "Ukrainska Pravda":
"We were sitting in her office, several other deputies were standing there, and I ask:
– Yulia Volodymyrivna, why do we need these elections in Ternopil?
The premier fell silent for a moment, and then asked in surprise:
– What elections?!
– Well, – I say, – we voted for the resolution on early elections to the oblast council. And we have a majority there, why do we need this?
She fell silent a second time, and then said:
– Never mind, we'll cancel it. Please do this without unnecessary noise."
Yulia Tymoshenko hoped to easily withdraw from the game without even sitting down at the table. At the end of February, some representatives of her entourage tried to warn the premier about the impossibility of exiting the situation so easily. A deputy who had a conversation with Tymoshenko a few days before BYuT and the Party of Regions cancelled the resolution on early elections describes the conversation as follows:
"I had just arrived from Ternopil Oblast, and during the meeting with her it seemed to me that she was wavering. She did not state her opinion, but kept asking again and again about the situation on the ground. And, as far as I understand, I was not the only one who came from the oblast and advised Yulia Volodymyrivna not to hesitate and to go to the elections. We all acknowledged that our rating would be significantly lower than before, but we would still win and take first place. And that day she still had not made a final decision, but kept her considerations to herself."
Ultimately, on the same day as the announcement of a vote of no confidence in Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko, the BYuT faction voted for the resolution cancelling the elections. However, having broken free from the captivity of her own political force's erroneous decisions, Tymoshenko automatically fell into a trap of circumstances that her opponents on the ground promptly took advantage of.
It is unlikely that BYuT anticipated that a small pimple on the electoral body could become a national-scale abscess.
The premier's entourage treated the elections in Ternopil Oblast mechanically, like any other event of regional scale. Her technologists did not understand the symbolic meaning of this race.
The comparison of the Mukachevo elections of 2004 with the elections in Ternopil in 2009 has already become banal. But after that Sunday night, the main difference between these two events also became clear.
If Mukachevo'04 was a turning springboard for Viktor Yushchenko's electoral support, then Ternopil'09 could become an ultra-high barrier on Yulia Tymoshenko's path to the presidential chair.
For now, BYuT will fight to reclaim its place under the Ternopil sun, while striving to save face.
The fact that there are many grounds for this is clear even from a superficial analysis of the preliminary results.
The first thing that shocks is the 10% support for the Party of Regions, given that the PR's own sociologists predicted no more than 2% for them. Obviously, the remaining 8% could have been payment from VO "Svoboda" and "United Centre" for tacit support of the elections by the "regionalists," who two weeks earlier had voted for their cancellation.
Even more striking is the overly blatant leap of "United Centre." Where the percentages they received came from is unclear. According to the territorial election commission, turnout at polling stations is approximately the same as in the previous elections. Baloha's party could hardly have intercepted the electorate from BYuT, which lost the most.
Instead, it will not be so difficult to prove that representatives of UC oversaw the entire vote-counting process. It is enough to question the police officers who at many polling stations refused to escort the ballots. The "valuable" papers were transported by representatives of the oblast administration without the presence of observers from any political force other than VO "Svoboda."
According to "Ukrainska Pravda" information, BYuT's main scenario for cancelling the elections that have already taken place consists of having the results invalidated at 10% of all polling stations. In reality, this could prove to be a very difficult path, as it envisages more than one and a half hundred court victories.
However, as sources assure, court complaints will pour in from both BYuT cells and the "Ternopil community."
But the problem is also that at many polling stations BYuT representatives were not even present: somewhere they were not allowed in, and somewhere, having heard the call not to go to the vote, they... did not come themselves.
Under the alternative scenario, BYuT will try to prevent members of the new oblast council from receiving mandates. Tymoshenko has two instruments for this: not surrendering the mandates of deputies of the previous convocation while simultaneously blocking the work of the oblast council apparatus and, essentially, disrupting the work of the current territorial election commission.
However, in reality, it no longer matters whether BYuT will be able to replay the events and cancel the results of the Ternopil elections through the courts. Even if this happens, the flag of BYuT's rating falling from 55% to 9% will flutter over Western Ukraine much louder than court decisions.
The elections in Ternopil have already become history and will have several important consequences. Including positive ones: both for Tymoshenko and for the entire country.
First, the right-radical political force VO "Svoboda" has announced itself aloud in the country. And interestingly, both opponents and supporters of the openly nationalist movement are glad about this. After all, now Oleh Tyahnybok has only two paths: either to win, or to disappear again into the underground of nationwide politics.
Having gained ratings against the backdrop of BYuT's mistakes, additionally supported by Yulia Tymoshenko's opponents from UC, Mr. Tyahnybok must prove his independence and withstand the tension until the next parliamentary elections.
However, many of VO "Svoboda"'s opponents are confident that a young political party without experience and sufficient personnel potential will not be able to retain its voters for more than six months. And even they are not against Oleh Tyahnybok's appearance on the horizon of the country's political life.
Their logic is that "either they will change, or let them show their face in full glory; it is better for the country to get over radicalism on such a scale than for us to later collect them across all oblasts."
Second (and most importantly), after the elections in Ternopil Oblast, Yulia Tymoshenko will finally lose the opportunity in the upcoming presidential elections to build her campaign on the principle of regional confrontation.
The events in Ternopil became the final point of Tymoshenko's year-long path, which began with rapprochement with Moscow in February 2008, became evident during the events in Georgia, and was finally determined after the latest gas conflict with "Gazprom."
For Tymoshenko herself this is, of course, a minus, because no matter how quickly she gains votes in the East, the crisis and the fresh wind of "Svoboda," which will fan anti-Tymoshenko sentiments in the West, will act unequivocally faster.
However, globally, the loss of unconditional support in the West and generally the image of being exclusively a politician of Western Ukraine could become the starting point for Tymoshenko's establishment as a politician of the whole country.
But it may happen that the presidential elections will catch BYuT precisely at the moment of the break in the geography of their support.
And in this context there is another scenario for the development of events, which after the events in Ternopil is gaining more and more supporters.
It consists in the fact that due to the uncertainty of all candidates in their own strength and the unpredictability of the electorate, the presidential elections may not take place at all. At least, within the timeframe determined as of today.
And if the leaders of political forces reach a tacit agreement on this issue, Ternopil'09 could play a completely opposite role and push Yulia Tymoshenko toward a painless rapprochement with the Party of Regions for the sake of constitutional reform.