Some information about the doubles of public campaign “PORA!”

The public campaign “PORA!” started at night of 28 March 2004, when leaflets with the question “What Kuchmism is?” were posted in 17 regional centers of Ukraine. 10 our activists were arrested during this action. Yet, it seems that OTHER people began to use this idea for their own purposes.

Distribution of leaflets was accompanied with the information that the site http://kuchmizm.info was the only official source of the campaign. The site read that the public campaign “PORA!” did not support any candidate, but struggled for honest election and against the regime ruling in Ukraine. It was also said that the campaign would not stop its work after the election too, since the main goal of the campaign was the development of civil society. The campaign was formed after the network principle of absence of formal leaders and official posts.

Almost a month later, during the election in Mukachevo, a “double” of the campaign “PORA!” appeared there: another organization with the same name presented itself as an informational- educational campaign (IEC) and created the site http://pora.org.ua. The IEC “PORA!” had hierarchical structure, leaders and posts of various levels. The Council of the IEC existed, the decisions of which were obligatory for fulfillment, and the overwhelming majority of activists did not know the complete composition of this organization. In spite of declaration of the principle of not-supporting of any candidate (similar to the principle of public campaign “PORA!”), some people’s deputies from the bloc “Our Ukraine”, such as Stetskiv and Pavlenko, were the members of the Council. Founders and activists of the PC “PORA!” had not taken part in creation of the IEC “PORA!” and learned about its existence only from mass media.

In this situation the public campaign “PORA!” took the decision not to protest against copying of its name, since the PC “PORA!” was not well-known then, so such protest would be interpreted by people as a competition for the brand, which would hinder the main goal – struggle with the existing regime. The decision was also taken on establishment of relations with the IEC “PORA!”, conduction of joint actions and negotiations about unification. By mutual agreement of the both parties, it was announced on 22 August that from that day the united public campaign “PORA!” would exist with the logotype combining the logotypes of these organizations (rising sun plus a clock).

At the moment of unification the public campaign “PORA!” essentially surpassed the IEC both by the number of actions and the number of regions, in which these actions were conducted. Activists of the PC “PORA!” became coordinators of the united campaign in the majority of regions (only in some regions they were members of both organizations).

On 28 January 2005 a forum of the PC “PORA!” was held. About 300 activists of the campaign, including those activists, who were recognized by regional coordinators as founders of the PC and IEC “PORA!”, took part in the forum. The participants of the forum declared about the continuation of activities in the form of public campaign, in the organizational-legal format of all-Ukrainian public organizations, the main goal of which is “dekuchmization” – liquidation of negative tendencies in the political, economic and social life of our country, which were inherited from the previous regime.

However, on the next day a part of activities of the PC “PORA!” conducted the so-called “grand closing” of the public campaign “PORA!”. Only 30 activists of the campaign were present at this action, who were neither founders nor regional coordinators. The informational message signed by Vlad Kaskiv also stated about closing of the campaign.

Activists of the public campaign “PORA!” recognize the right of Vlad Kaskiv and his associates to stop their participation in the campaign, but they cannot agree with the right of the latter to disband the campaign regardless of the will of overwhelming majority of activists of the campaign.

The most surprising fact was that the same persons, who had announced about “closing” of the public campaign “PORA!”, created after that new organization called… public campaign “PORA!”, which intended to realize the public control of political figures. At the same time the founders of this organization declare the intention to create a political party. It is incomprehensible how they are going to combine the public control of political figures and their own role of political figures.

Most detailed information can be obtained from representatives of the public campaign “PORA!”:

+38 (050) 310 46 98 – Mykhaylo

+38 (097) 921 18 64 – Volodymir

and on the OFFICIAL site of the PC “PORA!”: www.kuchmizm.info