People’s Self-Defense is not ready to create a single party on the basis of Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense Bloc.
PSD leader Yuri Lutsenko claimed this to Kommersant newspaper of 16 November 2007.
“Today [15 Nov] we came to a single opinion: Ukraine needs a united democratic party, but it must be monolithic and show stability of its beliefs. There is no desire to deal with the people, who refuse to enter a democratic coalition after many months of political struggle and after the election”, Yuri Lutsenko said.
“And we made a political decision that we will begin talks on creating a democratic party after the coalition is created, amendments are introduced into the legislation, and opportunities to unite parties appear – only after that we will carry out all the necessary internal party procedures for creating a single democratic party. We do not want to depend on two-three too independent and ambitious personalities, who are discrediting OU-PSD as a bloc”, he emphasized.
Yuri Lutsenko stressed that this position is shared by “Vpered, Ukrayina!” and Christian-Democratic Union parties, which are members of the People’s Self-Defense.
“We respect the opinion of our counterparts in the Bloc, but speaking about a single party, we must indicate monolithic beliefs and actions. Presently we have to tolerate, say frankly, tricks of some people, who cross up the bloc, we have to do this, but we are not going to do this within frames of the single party”, Yuri Lutsenko said.
Asked who are these “too independent people”, he noted: “Let us not mention the names of Petyovka, Kril, and Pliushch – actually, these surnames could be other. There are merely different political groups inside of each of the three political forces, which created the mega-bloc”.
According to him, in People’s Self Defense, the democracy can be controlled, thus, it is efficient. At the same time, he pointed out that in Our Ukraine, there are at least three-four serious political groups – “group of Kyrylenko, group of Baloha, group of Poroshenko”…
“Naturally, their interests have to get accustomed, and there is nothing terrible, That is why I have never made any negative statements about the stance of Kril, Petyovka, and Pliushch. They are just an instrument of indicating the interests of their big political groups inside the bloc. I stress once again: this is a normal phenomenon in the politics, but nowhere, except in our case, it is so egoistic and lasts so long”, Yuri Lutsenko stressed.
According to him the bloc’s political council has already discussed the issue of creating a single party, but it is unreal neither from legal, nor from political point of view.
Yuri Lutsenko also stressed that if the “problem” inside Our Ukraine continues after the coalition is created, People’s Self-Defense will go different ways “with these anarchists”, and his force will create a powerful democratic party with those “who know how to promise and how to fulfill promises”.
