Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's party has the most support in opinion polls ahead of Sunday's snap parliamentary elections, but obtaining a solid majority in the Verkhovna Rada is far from certain.
Zelenskiy, who took office in May, has been stymied by a parliament dominated by his opponents. He ordered the elections to be held three months earlier than scheduled in order to try to get a majority that would support his promised fight against endemic corruption and for other reforms.
His "Servant of the People" party — named after the television situation comedy in which he played a teacher who unexpectedly becomes president — is supported by 52 percent of the Ukrainians who intend to vote, according to a survey by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology.
In this photo taken on Friday, July 12, 2019 Dmytro Razumkov, head of the Servant of the People party, smiles, during an interview with The Associated Press in Kiev, Ukraine, Friday. His party will run in the upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for July 21. (AP PhotoEfrem Lukatsky)
But that edge doesn't necessarily ensure a majority in the legislature. Of the 424 seats to be filled, only 225 of them will be chosen by a national party list. The 199 others are single-mandate seats, whose composition could differ markedly from nationwide sentiment.
A party led by one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's closest associates, tycoon Viktor Medvedchuk, is polling in second place with about 10%, followed by the European Solidarity party of former president Petro Poroshenko, whom Zelenskiy defeated in a landslide in spring presidential elections.
Zelenskiy's party intends to continue the pro-Western course toward joining the European Union and NATO, combining this with a package of economic reforms.
In this photo taken on Friday, July 12, 2019 a party led by one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's closest associates, tycoon Viktor Medvedchuk, talks during an interview with The Associated Press in Kiev, Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s party is showing the most support in opinion polls ahead of Sunday’s snap parliamentary elections. Medvedchuk's party is polling in second place with about 10%, followed by the European Solidarity party of former president Petro Poroshenko. (AP PhotoEfrem Lukatsky)
"The position of the Ukrainian people is movement in the direction of Europe and it will be wrong to reconsider," party leader Dmytro Razumkov told The Associated Press.
The party declares that special attention will be paid to resuscitating anti-corruption reforms, which stalled under Poroshenko, and Razumkov says this could be a watershed for Ukraine, bringing in a new political culture of lawmakers interested in reforms rather than using political power for money.
"There are new people who today have completely different basic values than the representatives of the old political elites. This is a new team that Zelenskiy leads to implement new tasks," Razumkov said.
In this photo taken on Friday, July 12, 2019 a party led by one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's closest associates, tycoon Viktor Medvedchuk, talks during an interview with The Associated Press in Kiev, Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s party is showing the most support in opinion polls ahead of Sunday’s snap parliamentary elections. Medvedchuk's party is polling in second place with about 10%, followed by the European Solidarity party of former president Petro Poroshenko. (AP PhotoEfrem Lukatsky)
In contrast, Medvedchuk says Ukraine's proper course is to improve relations with Russia, which plummeted after Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of a war with Russia-backed separatists that has killed more than 13,000 people.
"If we do not restore economic pragmatic relations with Russia ... then we have no chance to overcome the economic crisis, which continues and is being aggravated," Medvedchuk told the AP.
He proposes that a key step toward bettering relations with Moscow would be for Ukraine to grant autonomy to the rebel areas of the east and to offer amnesty to the separatists. He said Ukraine could get a 25% discount on natural gas imports from Russia if it takes steps that satisfy the Kremlin.
In this photo taken on Friday, July 12, 2019 Dmytro Razumkov, head of the Servant of the People party, talks during an interview with The Associated Press in Kiev, Ukraine, Friday. His party will run in the upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for July 21. (AP PhotoEfrem Lukatsky)
As a close associate of the Russian president — Putin is the godfather of Medvedchuk's daughter — his statements likely reflect Kremlin thinking.
Razumkov said Zelenskiy's party is ready to negotiate with Russia on mechanisms for conflict resolution, and seeks peace in the east, "but not at any cost."
"What Medvedchuk says is not a strategy for returning territories, not a strategy for ending the war," he said.
Analyst Volodymyr Fesenko of Ukraine's Penta think tank says the ideas proposed by Medvedchuk are widely perceived as "the restoration of the Russian protectorate over Ukraine."
"Even an attempt to agree on such a scenario will provoke vehement resistance within Ukraine from the side of militant patriots and other political forces. And this can provoke a serious political crisis and even a new Maidan," Fesenko said, referring to the mass protests that drove out the country's Russia-friendly president in 2014.
Medvedchuk also provoked an uproar when a television channel he controls tried to arrange a teleconference with a Russian state channel that is consistently critical of Zelenskiy. Russian TV channels are banned from the air in Ukraine, and the teleconference plan was canceled.
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union marks its annual Europe Day on Thursday, but instead of the humdrum celebrations, all eyes are on the EU elections in a month's time, which portend a steep rise of the extreme right and a possible move away from the bloc's global trendsetting climate policies.
After decades in which the EU elections hardly caused a ripple, the June 6-9 voting is the most important in memory. It is being held at a time of continuous crises on a continent which is experiencing a war in Ukraine, climate emergencies, a shifting of geopolitical plates and fundamental questions on the reach and purpose of the EU itself.
“It will be an existential fight,” said Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister and outgoing free-market liberal member of parliament who has been in the thick of EU politics for over a quarter century. It will pit “those who want less Europe and, then, those political forces who understand that in the world of tomorrow you need a far more integrated European Union to defend the interests of the Europeans,” he said in an interview.
In naked political terms, it means those traditional socialist, liberal and green forces that ran the EU parliament with the Christian Democrats over the past five years against the surging powers of the hard nationalist right, exemplified by leaders like Viktor Orbán of Hungary and Georgia Meloni of Italy.
The vote is the second-biggest exercise in democracy behind the elections in India, as the 27-nation bloc of 450 million people will be picking 720 parliamentarians to serve them over the next five years with decisive votes on everything from digital privacy rules to international trade policy and climate measures.
But more than that, when the results are made public late on June 9, it will be an indication whether the continental political drift will match the rightward swing seen across much of the globe from Argentina to the Netherlands and Slovakia.
Even if surveys diverge somewhat on the margins of the gains, they all point toward one thing: The nationalist hard right and populist parties will make strong gains.
“If I look at the polls all over Europe, more or less, I can always see the same scenario,” said Nicola Procaccini, Meloni's man in the European Parliament, who typically considers himself as part of the center-right far removed from the neo-fascist roots of his Brothers of Italy party.
He said likeminded parties "are rising more or less, everywhere.” That includes election victories in the Netherlands and Slovakia and polls showing they lead the way in France with Marine Le Pen 's National Rally.
When it comes to the fundamentals, the EU battle could be seen as Verhofstadt vs. Procaccini, with one insisting only more joint policies on issues like defense are the answer to the EU's global challenges ahead, and the other saying how the individual member states, with their cherished nationhood at its core, should always come first.
While 27 nations with often inefficient individual defense programs have left western Europe at the mercy of U.S. goodwill for much of the past half century, Verhofstadt wants a full defense union to stave off a belligerent Russia, and anticipate a non-committal United States if Donald Trump becomes president in November. “It is not individual member states which will protect the people,” he said.
“And that’s the reason why it’s an existential fight. Because if we lose this fight against the right-wing parties, we will be without defense, without security,” Verhofstadt said.
Procaccini instead centers on what many far-right parties see as encroachment and downright meddling in national affairs by the EU's institutions in Brussels and Strasbourg, France. They have specifically lashed out at the EU Green Deal to keep climate change at bay and have specifically targeted measures to force farmers into more environmentally friendly methods as overbearing and overruling national decision making. They want to hark back to the EU's timid origins some 60 years ago when cooperation was much more voluntary and limited.
“We want to restore the original idea of Europe,” Procacinni said.
It is unlikely the anti-EU parties will get a grip on legislative power but a surge into third place behind the Christian Democrats and Socialists would have a major impact. If the forecast of the European Council on Foreign Affairs holds, the think tank says "this ‘sharp right turn’ is likely to have significant consequences for European-level policies ... particularly on environmental issues, where the new majority is likely to oppose ambitious EU action to tackle climate change."
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has already softened some of the climate rules and her center-right Christian Democrat European People's Party, the biggest in the legislature, has moved rightward on migration on top of climate policy.
With a wilting of the Green Deal, it would make sure that beyond facing geopolitical crises, the EU would also face one of its own making.
Thursday's Europe Day honors the memory of Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of the European Union, who once said: “Europe will be forged in crises.”
FILE - Members of European Parliament participate in a series of votes as they attend a plenary session at the European Parliament in Brussels, on April 10, 2024. The European Union marks Europe Day on Thursday, May 9, but instead of the traditionally muted celebrations, all eyes are on the EU elections in one month time which portend a steep rise of the extreme right and a possible move away from its global trendsetting climate policies. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert, File)
FILE - A woman walks holding a baby by a sculpture depicting French diplomat Jean Monnet, part of the monument of the European Union Founding Fathers in Bucharest, Romania, on Dec. 29, 2018. The European Union marks Europe Day on Thursday, May 9, but instead of the traditionally muted celebrations, all eyes are on the EU elections in one month time which portend a steep rise of the extreme right and a possible move away from its global trendsetting climate policies. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda, File)
FILE - President of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, Guy Verhofstadt, speaks in the hemicycle of the European Parliament in Brussels, on May 26, 2019. While 27 nations with often inefficient individual defense programs have left western Europe at the mercy of U.S. goodwill for much of the past half century, Verhofstadt wants a full defense union to stave off a belligerent Russia, and anticipate a non-committal United States if Donald Trump becomes president in November. (AP Photo/Olivier Matthys, File)
FILE - People wait in line to visit the European Parliament during Europe Day celebrations in Brussels on May 4, 2024. The European Union marks Europe Day on Thursday, May 9, but instead of the traditionally muted celebrations, all eyes are on the EU elections in one month time which portend a steep rise of the extreme right and a possible move away from its global trendsetting climate policies. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)
FILE - A man wears a suit in the EU colors as he walks outside the European Parliament during Europe Day celebrations in Brussels on May 4, 2024. The European Union marks Europe Day on Thursday, May 9, but instead of the traditionally muted celebrations, all eyes are on the EU elections in one month time which portend a steep rise of the extreme right and a possible move away from its global trendsetting climate policies. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)
FILE- A man holds a European Union flag as he walks outside the European Commission building during Europe Day celebrations in Brussels on May 4, 2024. The European Union marks Europe Day on Thursday, May 9, but instead of the traditionally muted celebrations, all eyes are on the EU elections in one month time which portend a steep rise of the extreme right and a possible move away from its global trendsetting climate policies. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo File)
FILE - A group stands under an election banner outside the European Parliament in Brussels on April 29, 2024. The European Union marks Europe Day on Thursday, May 9, but instead of the traditionally muted celebrations, all eyes are on the EU elections in one month time which portend a steep rise of the extreme right and a possible move away from its global trendsetting climate policies. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)
