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BBC Monitoring Service Research, UK, May 07, 2004
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Petro Symonenko
(Mirror-Weekly, Kyiv)
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Communist leader Petro Symonenko, 51, is anti-market, anti-American and
pro-Russian. He professes a nostalgic attitude to the Soviet past, drawing
support from the many elderly people impoverished after the collapse of the
Soviet welfare system. Symonenko's voter base has been shrinking, but
opinion polls show that he remains the third most popular presidential
candidate in Ukraine after the right-of-centre opposition leader Viktor
Yushchenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.
Born in Donetsk, Symonenko graduated from the Donetsk Polytechnic Institute
in 1974 with a diploma in engineering. In 1975 Symonenko became a
functionary of the Communist youth organization Komsomol. On joining the
Communist Party in 1978, he climbed the Communist career ladder from deputy
secretary of Donetsk city Komsomol to deputy secretary of the Donetsk
regional Communist Party committee.
In 1991, when the Communist Party was outlawed in Ukraine, Symonenko
moved into business - a fact that he, as an orthodox Marxist, does not like
to
recall. Until December 1993 he was deputy director of the Ukrvuhillyamash
machine-building corporation. But when the Communist Party of Ukraine was
founded in June 1993, Symonenko was elected its leader, as a representative
of Donetsk Region, which numerically dominated the party.
Petro Symonenko |
In parliament, to which Symonenko was first elected in 1994, his party has
been opposing market reform and President Leonid Kuchma's foreign policy,
which the Communists believe has been excessively pro-Western. Symonenko
stood for president in 1999 and lost the election in the second round to the
incumbent Kuchma, scoring 38 per cent of the popular vote.
The Communist Party did not support the anti-government protests in 2000-01,
which erupted when a fugitive former bodyguard accused Kuchma of having
kidnapped opposition journalist Heorhiy Gongadze. The Communists believed
that the protests were inspired by the West. In 2002-03, however, the
Communist
joined an anti-Kuchma campaign with the rest of the opposition.
The government constitutional reform plan, aimed at weakening the presidency
and strengthening parliament, has put an end to the fragile opposition
alliance. Unlike Yushchenko, who believes in strong presidency, Symonenko,
who has long cherished the idea of turning Ukraine into a parliamentary
republic, has backed the plan. Last year Symonenko's party opposed sending
Ukrainian troops to Iraq, and now it is campaigning to recall the
contingent.
When journalists ask Symonenko whether he would stand for president this
year, he usually says it will be up to the party to decide. It is generally
believed, though, that the party will nominate him. Symonenko counts the
ideologically-close Socialist Party of Oleksandr Moroz among his potential
allies. Symonenko's potential voters live mostly in the Russian-speaking
areas in the east and south of Ukraine. But Symonenko's home region,
Donetsk, is no more his stronghold. Prime Minister Yanukovych is more
popular there, polls show.
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