Only one frontman left – Boyko: why people's deputies from the Opposition Platform for Life decided to call themselves PZZHM

I think this is the next and inevitable stage in the evolution of the former Party of Regions and the political forces that played in its electoral field. Yuriy Boyko said that the internal watershed was the February 24 vote in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for the introduction of martial law. Having weeded out those members of the faction who were against this decision, the Lyovochkin-Boyko wing actually began the process of political rebranding.

Such a development of events was expected, given the processes of divergence and convergence that began under the Opposition Bloc in the framework of the eighth convocation of parliament. The second reason was the decision of the National Security and Defense Council to suspend the activities of the Opposition Platform for Life during the war.

Will this old – new project include the figure of the “gray eminence”?

< p>Today, in the ranks of this deputy group, there is essentially one single frontman. This is Boyko. However, decisions will be made on a collegiate basis, as is customary in other parties.

I don't think that behind Boyko's back there will be some “gray cardinal” who will make all decisions. As a man who has been in Ukrainian politics for many years, Boyko has learned a lot. And he definitely knows how to protect his own interests. In the end, even without this newly created political force, he, as a fairly recognizable politician, can count on a political future, unlike most former and current partners in the faction.

Valentin Gladkikh/Photo from the speaker's personal archive

What will be the main program goals of the new parliamentary group?

I can assume that it will focus on socio-economic issues. Deputies from its composition will advocate for solving the problems of social protection of the population, economic development. Moreover, this is well correlated with the image of Boyko as a “red director”. There will be a group of such “strong business executives”.

They will drop some of the rhetoric that has lost public support today. They will stop standing up for the Russian language or the Moscow Patriarchy, close relations with Russia. The main attention will be focused, among other things, on issues of economic sovereignty.

The rhetoric of “external governance” will disappear from everyday life, so as not to be inconsistent at a time when we are in dire need of the support of our international partners with money and weapons.

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So PZZHM will turn into a classic left-wing party?

I think yes. Thus, we will have one more left party in parliament. “Batkivshchyna” in recent years has also focused on points characteristic of political forces of the classical left.

It is important to understand that leftism in this case is no longer an ideological component, but rather a political technology one, oriented to a greater extent. degree to the target electorate.

Boyko said that this new party is pro-Ukrainian. How does the presence of Kachny on the party list correlate with these words of his? He is known for his openly anti-Ukrainian position.

There is one important nuance here. In accordance with the Law of Ukraine “On the Regulations of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine”, a deputy group is formed in the amount of the smallest parliamentary faction at the time of its creation (15 people – channel 24).

If there were less than a certain number of deputies left from the Opposition Platform for Life, this would not allow the creation of a new deputy group. They may not want to see anyone in the newly created group, but this would lead to the fact that one large faction would fall apart simply into some disparate elements.

It would turn out that the rest of these deputies would become “free agents”, as in the football transfer market. And they would simply join other factions. The least toxic ones could write relevant statements and join, for example, the ranks of the Servant of the People or join other parliamentary groups that already exist in parliament.

It is clear that the most odious figures, like Shufrich or Kachny, would hardly have been taken anywhere, but many other factions and deputy groups could easily have been accepted into their composition.

According to the expert, Shufrich would hardly have been taken into some kind of political force/Photo by Valentina Polishchuk, Channel 24

Or these deputies from the former Opposition Platform for Life would simply become non-factional. Therefore, here mathematics itself forces PZZhM to take such characters. Otherwise, they might not have gathered the necessary number of parliamentarians in order to create their own parliamentary group.

Prospects for the PLZZhM

How many electoral cycles will this political new formation last?

By the next cycle, the group will necessarily transform. Some new political force will be created on its basis. I practically have no doubt about it.

The fact that in the current Verkhovna Rada there is only one faction, which was in the previous convocation of the Ukrainian parliament – “Fatherland”, the rest is in fact newly formed, plays to confirm my hypothesis, in fact, like the Opposition Platform for Life and the EU, which, although they have their origins in the political forces represented in the eighth convocation, are not identical to them.

Reformatting and rebranding, as we see, work great and give results. Moreover, this applies not only to Ukraine, but also to many European democracies.

The political prospects of the reformatted HLE depend also on the legal factor. We will see how the investigation of Medvedchuk's activities in Ukraine will proceed.

I do not exclude that some deputies who were members of the “Medvedchuk” group, like Kachny, may also become defendants in criminal cases.

Judging by the speed with which the deputies of the Boyko group made a decision to rebrand the OPPL, do you think they learned the lesson of the communists, who at one time did not want to change the sign to the last and, as a result, ceased to exist politically?

The difference is that the communists were interesting to their electorate, in fact, only because they were communists. If they changed their name, losing the well-known brand, they would lose the support of their potential voters.

The Communists would have already ceased to exist due to the fact that over time their deputies would have physically died of old age, as well as the electorate they were guided by. Do you know what was the average age of the parliamentarians who gathered in the Communist Party? The communists were hostages of their brand.

I must say that there is another important point. The Communist Party was already banned at the dawn of Ukrainian independence. Subsequently, this decision was declared unconstitutional and she was reinstated.

Therefore, taking into account their previous positive experience, the communists, choosing between death by such a rebranding and the prospect of competing for their promoted brand, chose the second option. True, this time it did not happen as it was thought.

This will not happen with the former HLE, because HLE is not a brand. They, unlike the communists, can change their name without any problems, adjust their political positions to the current socio-political mood in society and look for “their” voter in the conventionally “white-blue” electoral field.

Of course, the electoral field has changed and for success it will be necessary to seriously rethink some of its program principles, especially in terms of relations with the Russian Federation, since now this, to put it mildly, has lost its relevance and is unlikely to give the desired electoral results.

Is there a final and irreversible end to the pro-Russian political discourse in Ukraine?

I think so.