The 'Bat'kivshchyna' political party, the mainstay of BYuT, claim to now have nearly half a million paid-up members in Ukraine.
They are quite evenly scattered throughout all of Ukraine's oblasts, and there are some surprises, e.g. they have 7888 and 15720 members in the western Ukrainian Ternopil and Volyn oblasts respectively, whilst for the east Ukrainian Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts the figures are 9566 and 15390 members respectively.
Eastern Ukraine is of course more heavily populated that its western regions, but nevertheless, BYuT is the only party whose membership comprehensively covers the country.
They seem to be particularly strong in central regions, e.g. nearly 34000 members in Kirovohrad oblast, and 28241 members in Dnipropetrovsk oblast.
BYuT attracts some very able leaders who since March have been trying to get stuff done at a local level which would attract to the grass roots while Yulia's fan base is really, truly, absolutely loyal.
ReplyDeleteIf people like/love her they stick with her even if stuff she does has backlash (for ex. the protests in Kyiv city Rada do have people upset that deputies are fighting - why they should care more about ettiquette than content is beyond me, but people are upset that because of the behavior of politicians, they are being laughed at. But none of BYuT supporters are backing away from Yulia and her party. Great loyalty.)
But if people don't like Yulia - they really don't like her (with good reason Chernovetsky mutters the word "Lazarenko" every time he can on camera.)
Yulia and her party BYuT inspire not only voters but also deputities. Her party includes some of those who I would consider to be some of the best and the brightest. (Perhaps not the most honest but two out of three ain't bad.)