Odious politicians are preparing to win seats in the new Verkhovna Rada in the first-past-the-post constituencies

Photo: Ivan Chernichkin

The Central Election Commission initiated the registration of candidates for people’s deputies that will run in single-mandate constituencies. So far, the CEC has received only 30 applications for running in the election campaign, the majority of which are from the Donetsk and Mykolaiv oblasts.

People from the nation’s capital

Former Secretary of the Kyiv City Council Oles Dovhiy will run in the elections in the majoritarian district No. 102 (Svitlovodsk, Kirovohrad oblast). Recently, Dovhiy has been highly active in different public events in the city and does not conceal his plans of running in the elections. According to information that Capital possesses, he is supported by people’s deputy Serhiy Kuzmenko (independent), who manages elections in majoritarian constituencies on behalf of President Petro Poroshenko.

It was planned that one of the representatives of the “Chernovetskiy team” – deputy of the Kyiv City Council Alla Shlapak – will try her luck by running in the majoritarian constituency. “I’m not taking part in this masquerade,” she told Capital. Unlike Shlapak, 41 deputies of the Kyiv City Council plan to raise their status and become parliament members, Secretary of the KCC Oleksiy Reznikov said. A source of Capital in the UDAR-Solidarnist faction noted that this is about those deputies that hope to be nominated in Kyiv by the president’s party. He refused to name them stating that the congress of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc has so far not made a decision.

It is a known fact that current people’s deputies are planning to be reelected to the parliament in constituencies in Kyiv. For example, Oleksandr Briginets (Batkivshchyna) confirmed for Capital that he will run in the elections in his constituency. He added that people’s deputies Dmytro Andriyivskiy and Volodymyr Ariev also plan to run in this manner. “I think that the majority of Kyiv majoritarians will run in their constituencies. Prosecutor General Vitaliy Yarema will be the only one not to run. In his constituency No. 212 we can cut a deal on a single candidate,” said Briginets.

By the way, in the Kyiv oblast the candidacies of certain majoritarians that are current deputies have already been agreed to with the president. They are the independent deputy Serhiy Mishchenko and UDAR members Pavlo Rizanenko and Ruslan Solvar. First representative of the Vitaliy Klitschko party will run in the Brovary constituency, while the second representative will run in Markarov.

The regions

The most unpredictable candidates will run further away from the nation’s capital. For example, a source of Capital in the Mykolaiv Oblast State Administration said that last week sociological metering of the awareness of voters of the former head of the Presidential Administration Serhiy Lyovochkin and his deputy Serhiy Larin was conducted in two constituencies in the region. Today, they are collaborating on popularizing the Development of Ukraine party, which many former members of the Party of Regions joined. “Measurements were taken in 127 constituencies of Lyovochkin and in 128 constituencies of Larin. However, no final decision has been made,” the source told Capital. He said Mykola Kruhlov and Ihor Brichenko, who were earlier elected in the region, will run in support of Head of the Mykolaiv Oblast State Adminstration Vadym Merikov, who is close to Premier Arseniy Yatsenyuk and may possibly join the latter’s political project People’s Front.

The local department of the CVU pointed out to Capital the active work of Deputy Chair of the Administration of Ukrainian Ports Borys Kozyr, who is associated with Vice Premier Volodymyr Groysman.

The majoritarians of the Party of Regions in Donbas are at the moment discussing the distribution of the constituencies, though Head of the Secretariat of the party Borys Kolesnykov already chose to go with constituency No. 48 in Kramatorsk.

Press Secretary of the oblast department of the CVU Oleksandr Ivanov also told Capital that former and current members of the PoR may battle in certain constituencies in the regions. “Oleksiy Azarov is supported in the constituency No. 47 in Slavyansk. Also Natalia Korolevska, Hanna Herman and members of the PoR are highly active there. I think that those same people will be active in the majority of constituencies where elections may be successfully held,” said Ivanov. In the Luhansk oblast members of the Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko and Batkivshchyna have begun working with the electorate.

“First and foremost, this campaign is being conducted in the cities of Shchastya, Svatovo and Starobelsk, where public reception halls have been opened and meetings are being held. Interestingly, members of the PoR have not been there for quite some time,” Regional Coordinator of the OPORA network Oleksiy Kormyletskiy told Capital.

Kolomoiskiy in touch with Tymoshenko

In the Dnipropetrovsk oblast, where the PoR won in all constituencies during the previous elections, it is expected that new faces will appear. Head of the oblast CVU Stanislav Zholudev told Capital that it is anticipated that local entrepreneur Zahid Krasnov, former vice premier Oleksandr Vilkul and Vice Chair of the Oblast State Administration Borys Filatov will be nominated.

Chairman of the local organization of the Communist Party Serhiy Khrapov, who in the last elections garnered major support in Dniprodzerzhynsk, will run in the constituency of Oleh Tsaryev.

“Rumors that Tymoshenko formed a majoritarian list of new candidates that was approved by the Oblast State Administration have been going around for a week,” said Zholudev.

Meanwhile, Chair of the Odesa Oblast State Administration Ihor Palytsia, who is close to Kolomoiskiy, decided to compete against Serhiy Kivalov in constituency No. 135 in Odesa. Chair of the Oblast Council Oleksiy Honcharenko, who heaed the local organization of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, will run in the elections in constituency No. 133, where he lost to Ihor Markov in the last elections.