This week a congress of the Servant of the People party is expected to be held, at which a new leadership of the party will be elected. However, the main intrigue is what political project Bankova plans to present as an alternative to the Servants, and who will become the leader of this new party.
Bad sociology for power
First, a little sociology to understand the mood on Bankova. A month ago, the sociological group “Rating” conducted a study of the socio-political sentiments of Ukrainians. The results were so shocking that sociologists were afraid to publish them on their website. But they appeared on the Internet .
In the personal competition, Vladimir Zelensky remains the leader of the race. 41.5% of respondents would vote for him if presidential elections were held in the near future. In second place is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valery Zaluzhny. His candidacy for the post of head of state would be supported by 26.9%. Among those who will vote and have made their choice, 47.4% are for Zelensky and 30.7% are for Zaluzhny. The level of support for any of the other potential contenders is less than 5%.
If the two leaders of the race had entered the second round, Zelensky would have defeated Zaluzhny with a score of 42% to 40%. That is, 51% versus 49%, if we take into account only those who will vote and have made their choice.
It is clear that these are sad figures for Bankova. But not the saddest, since there are also the results of the party race, where the hypothetical party of Valery Zaluzhny took first place. 30.3% of respondents would vote for her if parliamentary elections were held in the near future.
While conducting the survey, sociologists took into account the plans of Bankova’s political strategists to change the favorite party: the Servant of the People party should fade into the background, and a new party under the working name “Zelensky Bloc” will be brought to the forefront. Both options were included in the list. And this is what happened: 22.4% would vote for the Zelensky Bloc and another 4.6% for the Servant of the People party, for a total of 27%.
If we take into account only those who will vote and have made their choice, then six parties overcome the five percent barrier: the party of Valery Zaluzhny - 36%, the Zelensky Bloc - 26.7%, the party of Sergei Pritula - 7.6%, the party " Azov" - 5.8%, "Servant of the People" - 5.5%, "European Solidarity" - 5.4%.
This leads to two conclusions for Bankova: 1) the idea of a new party makes sense; 2) the new party is not enough to get ahead of Valery Zaluzhny’s party.
If there were stupid people sitting on Bankova, they would have set themselves a destructive task: to remove Zaluzhny from the post of commander-in-chief and discredit him as much as possible. Smart people would concentrate on the constructive task - correcting the mistakes that turned the “servants of the people” into the party of yesterday. Well, the cunning ones would do two things at once.
We have already talked about Bankova’s plans to replace Zaluzhny and how the “servants of the people” and the SBI are working to discredit him . But for Bankova, the second, constructive problem is also important - what to do with the Servant of the People party and how to raise the rating of the hypothetical “Zelensky Bloc”.
Three options for “servants of the people”
In the coming days (approximately December 14-15), a congress of the Servant of the People party is expected, which should consider the personnel issue. According to the party charter, the congress elects the party chairman “for no more than two years . Since November 15, 2021, the party has been headed by People’s Deputy Elena Shulyak (head of the committee on the organization of state power, local government, regional development and urban planning), that is, her two-year term has already expired. Before her, the main “servant of the people” for two years was People’s Deputy Alexander Kornienko, who now sits in the chair of the first vice-speaker of parliament.
One might assume that a struggle between political titans would unfold for the post of party chairman. Still, it is this figure who will have to lead the “servants of the people” into battle for parliamentary mandates if elections take place no later than the fall of 2025.
Half a dozen possible contenders are being discussed in the media. Among them are Deputy Minister of Education and Science Andrey Vitrenko (head of the budget commission of the Kyiv City Council), people's deputies Yegor Chernev (deputy head of the committee on national security, defense and intelligence), Maria Mezentseva (deputy head of the committee on integration into the European Union), Mikhail Radutsky (head Committee on National Health, Medical Care and Medical Insurance), Lesya Zaburannaya (member of the budget committee), Alexander Kachura (deputy head of the committee headed by Elena Shulyak). All these names are unlikely to inspire millions of Ukrainians.
But the new party leader, it seems, will not be faced with the task of returning the “servants” to their former popularity. Neither a change of leader nor rebranding will help here. The drop in ratings is the result of the joint efforts of “servants of the people” in parliament, regional and city councils. Even if we install some super-promising leader and come up with a super-powerful name like “Nezlamna Peremoga,” the current deputies will still drag this party down.
The task of the new leadership of the “servants of the people” will be to ensure the functioning of the party until the future parliamentary elections. This is necessary for a technical reason: to appoint your people to election commissions. According to the Electoral Code, each party that has its own faction in the Verkhovna Rada delegates two of its representatives to each district election commission and one to each precinct election commission.
And the further fate of the party will depend on the ratings. It is possible that Bankovaya will not allow her to participate in the elections at all, so that she does not fragment the electorate of the conditional “Zelensky Bloc”. The second option is that the “servants” will take part in the elections and fail. In both of these cases, after the elections, the party will quietly cease to operate, and its leadership will actually serve as a liquidation commission.
If the party nevertheless goes to the polls and overcomes the five percent barrier, then it will be a junior partner of the Zelensky Bloc. If, of course, the new batch shows better results.
Error correction
Rumors about Bankova’s preparation of a new political project began six months ago. Moreover, the “digital” Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Fedorov was announced for the role of leader. They said that he would receive the post of prime minister and then head a party called “Diya”. This is the same name as Fedorov’s favorite brainchild - a single portal of public services (and a smartphone application).
Indeed, there is such a political party “Diya” , registered on December 21, 2021. Its head is Elena Basok, who has already implemented one interesting project. In 2016, she created the Harmonious Development Party, which in 2017 turned into the “Rukh of New Forces of Mikhail Saakashvili .
It may well be that Bankova seriously planned to make Fedorov prime minister and promote his party.
Previously, Bankova’s political strategists overdid it, attributing all the achievements of power exclusively to Zelensky. At the same time, Prime Minister Denis Shmygal was left with the unenviable role of executing commands from the Office of the President. But with such an image it is impossible to lead the list of the party in power in the parliamentary elections. The party in power must be led to victory in elections by a person whose achievements are known and obvious to everyone.
However, Fedorov is too specific in this regard. Digital transformation is, of course, wonderful, but it is definitely not among the top five problems that Ukrainians now consider a priority. The main thing for the people now is the war with Russia. And Fedorov, by the way, heads the “Army of Drones” project. But now he may have problems due to the corruption scandal surrounding the State Special Communications Service , which is implementing this project.
It looks like they found a more suitable candidate at Bankova. This conclusion suggests itself due to the fact that lately there has been an abnormally large number of Andrei Ermak in the information space. He completely replaced the entire Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And on many other issues he is also in charge, overshadowing both the government and parliament.
Of course, Ermak has its drawbacks - for example, anti-rating. This is primarily a consequence of the image of an eminence grise. Or the “green cardinal of Kiev ,” as Politico called him, placing him fourth on the list of the most influential Europeans.
Any person who is influential and not public is easy to demonize. So Ermak set about systematically improving his image - of course, not by reducing his influence, but by increasing publicity.
It is logical to wait for the next two steps. Firstly, to change the post of head of the Presidential Office to the post of Prime Minister, in which he could definitely not lose influence, but increase his publicity. And secondly, to lead a party that would bring together the most successful representatives of the executive branch, including some heads of regional administrations.
Whether the Diya party will be used for this is a secondary question. And whether the new party will receive the name “Zelensky Bloc” is also not the most important thing.
And for Zelensky, and for Ermak, and for the government, and for the parliamentary mono-majority, the most important question is what result of their rule they can present to the people before the elections, when the time for elections finally comes. Now we see Ermak, who is mastering the role of a seller of excellent results. The only small thing left is to get results that could be sold as excellent.
