The Opposition Bloc intends to form a faction of 45 deputies

Nestor Shufrych is aspiring for the future

Photo: Konstantin Melnitsky

Yesterday, future deputies of the Opposition Bloc faction convened in their first meeting after the elections, during which the party’s leadership said the election campaign was successful and stated its readiness to accept more than a dozen self-nominated candidates to the faction.

Out-of-town meeting

The meeting of the Opposition Bloc was closed from the press and held on the outskirts of Kyiv in the suburban Kozatskiy Stan hotel and restaurant complex. One of the first to arrive was the leader of the electoral list Yuriy Boyko, who was given the honor to open the official part of the meeting according to the planned agenda of the program. Head of the central election headquarters Serhiy Larin was to present a report on the elections, while Andriy Yermolayev, who is Director of the Institute of Strategic Research Nova Ukraina created by Serhiy Lyovochkin was slated to report on the formation of the party.

«We gathered to discuss the results of the elections and our future,» Nestor Shufrych, who was clearly not counting on the presence of journalists, told Capital. Around 30 individuals gathered at the event, among which were not only future members of the parliament representing the Opposition Bloc, but also party functionaries.

At the same time, Serhiy Lyovochkin, Vadym Novynskiy and Oleksandr Vilkul were not in attendance. The latter has recently been the main speaker of the political force. «This was his personal initiative. So far, it is too early to say that Vilkul will be elected the head of the faction or will be given the post of vice speaker, which the powers that be promised the opposition,» a member of the party told Capital. He said the absence of Lyovochkin was foreseeable. «He rarely showed up at the election headquarters,» the source confirmed.

As a reminder, in the recently held parliamentary elections the Opposition Bloc took fourth place garnering 9.43% of the votes. This allowed its 27 deputies to win seats in parliament on the party list and another two representatives of the party won in the first-past-the-post constituencies.

Assistance for self-nominees

Tatyana Bakhteyeva, who won a seat in parliament on the Opposition Bloc list, told Capital that yesterday was the first meeting of members of the future parliamentary faction, which leaders of the election headquarters also attended. She said in his address Boyko thanked all participants for their hard work and said the elections were «a huge success for the party». «We worked in tough conditions. The Party of Regions fell apart during this period and our members felt the pressure. But our ideological tune and the desire to represent our electorate worked for us. And we were not afraid to speak about the extremely difficult situation in the country,» Bakhteyeva pointed out.
A source of the publication present at the meeting told that in his address Larin highly assessed the work of the managers of the election campaign headquarters in the Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts, where the party gained considerable support of the electorate. The successful work of the election headquarters in the Odesa and Zaporizhzhia oblasts was also noted. «The main message of the meeting was: the elections showed that the party was formed, it has an electorate, Ukrainian citizens acknowledge it and the party is known in the West. For this reason, the election headquarters will become oblast organizations that will begin preparations for local elections. This is our main objective,» the source informed.

Former people’s deputy Yuriy Pavlenko, who was elected on the list of the Opposition Bloc, confirmed for the publication information on the party’s preparations for local elections. «The task was set for the future, namely formation of a strong opposition and preparation for the future local elections,» he said.

Bakhteyeva informed that next Tuesday a meeting of members of the future Opposition Bloc faction will be held with an expanded composite. It is planned that self-nominees that intend to join the faction will attend this meeting. Bakteyeva assures that yesterday Boyko did not name the exact number of deputies ready to join the Opposition Bloc, though he did say their number is «significant».

Nonetheless, the source of the publication says according to assessments of leaders of the faction, it will have 45 members, which means that 16 deputies gave their preliminary consent to join the faction.

«Many former members of the Party of Regions factions, who won seats in the parliament, are at this point not ready to join the opposition. Though they say that collaboration is possible,» the source cited the words of the party’s leader.