Presentation on Parliamentary Elections in Ukraine (2012) by Andriy Kruglashov for International Association of Political Consultants conference,

1. Parliamentary Elections in Ukraine,
October 28 2012
KRUGLASHOV ANDRIY
November 10, 2012. IAPC,
New York, New York

2. Plan
Electoral SYSTEM
CONTEXT:
 Kharkiv treaties (or treachery?)
 Vae victis! Yulia and Yura go to jail.
 “Enterpreneural Maidan*”
 “Language Maidan”
CONTENTS: Electoral campaign: key messages and channels of delivery
 Winners (Party of Regions, Fatherland, Freedom, UDAR, Communist party of
Ukraine, 47 independents)
 Losers (“Ukraine-Forward”, “moneybags”, Ex-President)
 Challengers (Montyan)
 Hero (Grandma and Cat)
FRAUD and Gerrymandering
OUTCOMES
Civil society and elections
Key trends

3. Ukrainian Electoral System: mixed (50-50)
225 elected in single member districts 225 in single proportional district
(140.000-180.000 voters in average)
http://eastbook.eu/en/2012/10/uncategorized-en/2012-elections-in-ukraine-lets-focus-on-opinion-polls/
Vote for partisan or independent Vote for a Political Party
candidate Map was created by Serhij Vasylchenko

4. CONTEXT Kharkiv treaties (or treachery?)
 Russian fleet in Crimea till
2042!
 Ukraine bought sales on gas,
but still pays more than market
price for gas
Moment of glory - Moment of shame
Signing Kharkiv Treaties
D. Medvedev and V. Yanukovich
April 21, 2010

5. CONTEXT
Vae victis! Yulia and Yura go to jail
Ukraine’s former Prime Minister
Yulia Tymoshenko
(AP Photo/Ukrafoto, File)
Ukraine's former Minister
of Internal Affairs Yuri
Lutsenko
(photo: REUTERS/Gleb Garanich)

6. CONTEXT
Enterpreneural “Maidan”
Character:
All-Ukrainian action
(no political or ethnic split)
Cause:
Against “taxation terror”
Main advocates:
small businessmen
Outcomes:
- Minor step-backs in taxation
- Major participants in jail
Revolution YET TO BE!

7. CONTEXT
Language Law  “Language Maidan”
July, 3, 2012 Parliament passed Law that made Russian language official
in 10 administrative units of Ukraine. So-called bilingual approach in
fact was about making Ukrainian language useless and redundant.
People protested. Few starved for more than 12 days as an act of protest.
Giving up on language was perceived by protesters as giving up sovereignty

8. Key players who won, political positioning
and results
All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland"
("Batkivshchyna”) Ruling party – Party of Regions,
(all over the map: center-left, center-right, (Federalism,
“liberalism for one family”)
populist)
25.54%
30%
Ukrainian Democratic
Alliance for Reforms
Vitaliy Klitchko’s party
(Center-right, liberal)
All-Ukrainian union
13.96 % Communist Party of
“FREEDOM”
(Social-nationalist, Ukraine
(Communist, retrospective
conservative)
conservatism)
Turnout = 57.98% out of
10. 44% 36 213 010 registered voters 13.18 %

9. Party of Regions: Party that builds
We overcame destruction -
Stability is reached!

10. Party of Regions: from stability to well-being

11. Ways towards well-being: social bribery
Goods were delivered by the charitable fund of one of the candidates,
Prime-Minister’s son door to door

12. Charity foundations proliferated
Some candidates spent up to $100 per voter on direct social bribery

13. How they made it
 Front Zmin (Front of Changes) and Batkivschina
(Fatherland) united to create common partisan list
FOR FATHERLAND. We united for Ukraine

14. Tymoshenko took part in campaign
as a symbol

15. Key message for the last weeks of campaign
WE WILL STOP THEM!

16. Tactics: Black vs White polarization
Battle of EVIL vs GOOD
Mykola Katerynchuk – candidate of United Opposition “Fatherland”
Runs for Parliament to protect people
Got < 61%. Opponent – Petro Yurchyshyn bulldozed the road he previously built to please people

17. Competitive positioning of Fatherland:
Don’t trust! (Vitaliy Klitchko) Don’t be afraid! (Yanukovich)
Don’t beg! (Independent candidates)
MAKE YOUR CHOICE

18. Vitaliy Klitchko hits hard
Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reforms
(V. Klitchko’s party “UDAR” )
FORCE OF DECENT PEOPLE

19. Numerous candidates,
backed up by Vitaliy’s reputation
were drivers of campaign message
Force of decent people
From success of the man to success of the country

20. Non-intrusive image positioning of V. Klitchko
Politics can be plain/frank. Vitaliy Klitchko

21. One of the key messages – resonating
in the times of Ukraine’s reputational pitfall
UDAR will prove the world that Ukraine can be trusted!

22. New channels of delivery 

23. UDAR’s Message to entrepreneurs
Economy of equal opportunities: we will cut the number of
taxes!
New enterprise will get 3 years tax-off

24. Results
 13.96% of votes
 40 seats in parliament
 Klitchko is now perceived as a candidate for Presidency
Yet, from the point of view of missed opportunities…
X Klitchko’s team can’t be suspected in the effort to squeeze the
most out of the opportunity.
X Klitchko lost opportunity to establish clear base, especially on
Eastern Ukraine
X Overwhelming majority of candidates who ran on single-districts lost

25. Winner: Oleg Liashko, leader of Radical Party
1. Free Yulia, Gang – in prison! 2. Gang – get out! 3. Stand up,
Ukraine! 4. We’ll protect people from mafia.

26. Communist Party of Ukraine: empty left wing and
good ads bring 13.18% of voters on their side
In fact, Communists always vote with their
“class enemies” – Party of Regions
Their leader – Symonenko is in head of
Party for 20 years.
Corrupt. Hypocritical. But who cares?
 Message: Country back to people!
Key program statements: free education! corrupt politicians – to jail!
Tax on luxury, tax rich! Nationalization of strategic enterprises

27. Winners: VO SVOBODA
 “The hand won’t shake to change everything”. Oleg Tyagnybok

28. What helped marginal party with fascist
rhetoric to get 10,5 % of votes?
 Russian was institutionally made the regional official
language in 10 out of 27 Ukrainian oblasts*
 Inability of moderates to stood up and fight back against
criminal methods of governing
 Strategic voting:
- to help “Svoboda” overcome 5% threshold
- to have the party capable of literally fighting in parliament
* Name of administrative units

29. Why SVOBODA?
Message from former political prisoner, who
“Batkivshina” and
spent 28 years in GULAG and ran for Presidency
“UDAR”
in 1991 - Levko Lukyanenko
Will make it to the
Parliament anyway.
That is why Ukrainians
must vote for
“Svoboda” to bring
patriots in power

30. Looser:
Natalya Korolevska
Second Yulia?
She was trying…
But she is not.

31. Fail story: going all over the map
Promoting
candidate via
advertising front
page of a
magazine can turn
to be bad idea
Natalya Korolevskaya: SHE WILL PROTECT
EVERYONE!
(for sale starting from February, 3)

32. Established party: “Ukraine Forward”
Join the team of new leaders!

33. Got forward in her team
Soccer legend - Andriy Shevchenko joins Korolevska
Party “Ukraine - Forward!”.
Some claimed that he “played badly” with his head

34. She could not get enough leadership and
invited professional actor to be in a team
Travesty based on popular images from Russian version of Pinocchio, where
the former (Andriy Shevchenko, on the right) gets tricked by Cat Bazilop
(Ostap Stupka – actor, on the left, and Fox-Alice (Natalia Korolevskaya, in the
middle)
PS: Andriy Shevchenko donated $ 1.250.000 for campaign.

35. As a result:
 Constant battles with sociologist that did not show the
“right level of support”
 About $ 90 millions on campaign
 1.58% of votes
 Enormous level of disapproval for annoying ad. campaign

36. LOSER? Depends on goals!
Ex President managed to “steal” 1% from opposition
Victor Yuschenko – the only one beyond Kremlin control
#14
Our Ukraine

37. LOSERS worth to be mentioned:
Creative positioning of Independent Vasyl Kovalchuk
THIS DUDE FOUGHT!

38. Challenger: She really fought!
Message: Montyan will defend!
VOTE for MONTYAN - YOUR ADVOCATE IN PARLIAMENT

39. WHAT IS SPECIAL in Montyan’s campaign?
<9% of votes, 9.600 votes
First time in Ukraine local, grassroot-based fundrising gave
26.000$
300 volunteers fulfilled for free the amount of work that
would cost 200.000$
Information is provided by the manager of Montyan’s digital campaign, Mykola
Malukha

40. But no one stands close to the hero…

41. Babussy Cat grand narrative
derived from one mans creative
Found out that grand son voted for the “Regions”
Rewrote my will and left house for the CAT

42. Party of Regions didn’t
like the joke
 Destroyed media with ad,
displayed in Dniprodzerjynsk
 Started trial against author,
claiming that it is illegal to mention
Party of Regions here
Author replied with the next version 
“MADE BETTER* BY CENSORSHIP”
Rewrote my will and left house for the CAT
“Making better” now became a ironic metaphore for the actions of ruling party,
which promised “making live better today” in 2007

43. But Party of Regions were not satisfied
and destroyed that ad as well
It provoked huge public campaign
HELP TO SPREAD “BABA AND CAT”

44. Party of Regions members?
Hasta la vista!

45. Found out that
grand son voted for
the “Regions”…
Cannot calm down the cat!

46. Found out that dad
voted for the
“Regions”…
MOVED TO THE CAT’s
HOUSE

47. Citizens movement
Found out that tomorrow is the election
day… subscribed friends to be observers

48. Measuring average turnout on polling stations vs number of people voted for each party clearly
shows that on the stations, where 75 of more % of registered voters showed up, numbers of Party
of Regions supporters were raising dramatically. Usually as a results of “dead souls” voting.
Average number of voters per station / turnout

49. Gerrymandering example visualization (weird way to cut districts)
Other examples are provided by Serhij Vasylchenko here –
http://svasylchenko.livejournal.com/6926.html

50. Electoral results map. Proportional basis
The grey-blue area on a left is the domain of Svoboda (Freedom)
Everything else is divided between Batkivschyna and Party of Regions

51. PARTISAN AFFILIATION OF DEPUTEES
ELECTED IN SINGLE MANDATE DISTRICTS

52. New parliament (balance of seats)
COMMUNISTS – 32; UDAR – 40; PARTY OF REGIONS –
185; Fatherland – 101; SVOBODA – 37; INDEPENDENTS –
43; OTHER PARTIES – 7

53. Civil Society Projects and Elections

54. Powermeter:
measuring
responsibility
PROJECT OF PROMISES
MONITORING
12
Aim — transparent and less populist
виконано
politics.
----------------
Project answers next questions: 486 всього
What was promised?
What is fulfilled and what is not?
Who in Ukrainian politics complies his word
the least?
Which promises are bizarre and conflict
previous ones?
Objects of monitoring: President,
Prime-Minister, members of cabinet, 13 не виконано
parliamentary deputies , politicians and ----------------
bureaucrats from head of village council to
486 всього
the top level.
Powermeter helps to establish freedom
of speech and prevents censorship due to
activation of journalist environment.

55. Civic Society: Putting our eyes at candidates
lives
CANDIDATE’S GOODWILL CRITERIAS
EVALUATED BY “FAIR” MOVEMENT
1. Absence of facts of
human right violations
2. Continuing political
position according to the
will of the voters
3. Absence of involvement
in corruptive activities
4. Incomes transparency
and relevance of life style
to the income rate
5. Personal participation
in voting in parliament;
6. Participation in
parliamentary activities
and in committee
meetings
Civil society must control government, otherwise they will control us!
Natalia Kruglashova, civil activist, my mother

56. “Chesno” movement:
overt and covert outcomes
Deputies now know: they are watched
Practical tools to Integrity, honesty and
measure integrity accountability are no
are now available longer just “words”
Ties between journalists and civic
activist became stronger no longer can voters
say: “all politicians
“Cemetery” of candidates, are the same ”
filtered by partisan
machinery due to the failure
to meet “Chesno” criteria

57. Key trends exposed by 2012 Elections
 Ideas beat money
 Administrative resource is far from being omnipotent
 Radicalization, readiness to protest
 Increasing demand for national interest
 Many ways to vote against Party of Regions
(each party claimed to be in opposition)
 Civil society is waking up

58. Thank you very much for your attention!
I would love to answer your questions and to cooperate with you
in making politics better and democracy stronger around the globe
by leading decent candidates and parties to victory
Sincerely yours,
Andriy Kruglashov
NiKAA Consulting
1 404 451 7199
kruglashov@gmail.com
Facebook.com/kruglashov
PS: For those, who helped me and Veronika Kruglashova to earn the place in history as
the first Ukrainians ever at IAPC and to be the first to speak on the panel… See next
page

59. Acknowledgements:
 Denis Bohush, president of Bohush Communications, who worked for V.
Yuschenko’s Campaign in 2002-2004
 Mikhail Minakov, president of the foundation for Good Politics, Harvard
University scholar
 Ruslan Shtogrin, political consultant, field-specialist
 Vitaliy Sharlay, chief analyst of “Chesno” movement
 Mykola Malukha, manager of Montyan’s digital campaign
 Serhij Vasylchenko, specialist on electoral geography.
All maps introduced in presentation were made by Serhij.
You can look at Ukrainian electoral maps at vasylchenko.in.ua
 Ekaterina Egorova, President of Niccolo M for inspiring to speak out
 Veronika Kruglashova, my wife and partner for supporting and cheering
 Last, but not the least, Igor Mintusov, for being an example for many years