In twenty days Kyiv citizens will vote for their new city authorities. Ukrainians have become overly-familiar with springtime electioneering in the past few years of stuttering democratic growth, but even so the sheer number of candidates and pre-election promises that this mayoral campaign has produced so far has impressed the average citizen. The question now is whether enough Kyivites will both to vote, with most analysts expecting a small turnout to improve the chances that eccentric, pensioner-friendly incumbent Leonid Chernovetskiy will be able to cling onto his job.
Record-breaking campaign
Over seventy names will be on the ballot for Kyiv Mayor on May 25, making the document more of a small novella than a voting slip. “Experts have already declared that these elections are the most expensive in Kyiv’s history. The number of candidates who entered the struggle and look at the current race as a means for their own PR campaigns is impressive,” commented former prime minister and 2006 Kyiv mayor candidate Valeriy Pustovoytenko. The use of election campaigns to boost the otherwise low public profiles of ambitious local power brokers has been one of the side-effects of the country’s democratic development over the past decade, and this election is set to break all records in the amount of money spent on campaigns, many of which are thinly veiled attempts to improve a candidate’s broader recognition factor.
This enthusiasm for elections and the huge number of candidates has not guaranteed much in the way of greater creativity. According to the eerily similar campaign slogans employed by the usually-inventive teams behind the main competitors for the capital city’s top job, Kyiv needs a smart, strong, kind or alternatively a fair mayor.
Political heavyweights
Chernovetskiy remains the favourite and seems likely to retain his job. “Social issues are Chernovetskiy’s strong suit and his work in this regard is the best. Some people say it is buying voters and some use other words, but there is no question about how successful it is,” says Oleksiy Holobutskiy, a political strategist and deputy director of the Kyiv-based Agency on Modeling Situations.
Opinion polls show that Mr. Chernovetskiy’s most serious rival is once again world- famous boxing champion Vitaliy Klitschko. Since arriving on the city’s political landscape Mr. Klitschko has stood in opposition to the current Kyiv administration and has criticised it strongly not only with words but with court appeals. On April 18 the candidate brought a suit to court and accused Mr. Chernovetskiy of abusing his position and funding his campaign with state money. “Vitaliy Klitschko and his headquarters have opened another front against acting Kyiv mayor Leonid Chernovetskiy…I am sure that this new appeal doesn’t have any legal basis. This is the usual panic of our rivals and is an attempt to play with Kyiv’s citizens’ emotions,” responded Oles Dovhyi, the youthful secretary of Kyiv City Council and Mr. Chernovetskiy’s media spokesman.
Who will be undisputed champ?
Mr. Klitschko is hugely popular among Kyivites as a sportsman and ambassador for the country, but he faces challenges capturing the Orange electorate. Yulia Tymoshenko’s chosen candidate Oleksandr Turchinov is also running, which creates the possibility of a fatal split in the Orange vote. “I think that Klitschko will only lose votes in the coming weeks because he is not Chernovetskiy’s only critic,” explains Mr. Holubitskiy.
However, Mr. Klitschko is no longer the absolute political beginner he was when he first stood for mayor in 2006. Volodymyr Bondarenko, a representative of the Klitschko Bloc, argues that their team is showing voters the results of their work instead of making empty promises. “We go out to the people with what we’ve done in two years of opposition. For example, there are more than 150 projects stemming from Kyiv Council resolution initiated by the Klitschko bloc,” he states.
Mrs. Tymoshenko’s role in the elections remains somewhat ambiguous. After threatening to walk over the vote to hold the elections, she has since appeared to hesitate before backing Mr. Turchinov who is said to have not been very enthusiastic about the idea of participating in the elections. The BYUT candidate has to combine campaigning with his work in the government because he has not received permission to leave his post. He is often seen campaigning on Saturdays with activities like those of most candidates, which generally involve cleaning up the city in Soviet-style subbotniki days. “I am not going to surprise anyone and I won’t do shows. I think that we have the experience to return Kyiv to its greatness. Most important are the team of professionals who are gathered together in our political force,” says Mr. Turchynov.
His chances are growing, according to some polls. In the beginning of April his rating was a bit higher than 4%, but once his candidacy was confirmed it rose to between 7% and 8%. “For Turchinov the only chance for victory is to turn everything into a political issue. I think his biggest resource is Yulia Tymoshenko and he has to make the most of it. He doesn’t have other way in this short space of time,” suggests Mr. Holobutskiy.
The outsiders
Despite numerous appeals to put forward a single candidate to represent the self-styled democratic coalition, the field has been fragmented by the appearance of a handful of rivals all looking to consolidate the traditional progressive Kyiv vote. One is current Our Ukraine parliamentary deputy Oleksandr Omelchenko, who was Kyiv’s mayor for ten years before Mr. Chernovetskiy’s rise to power. Omelchenko is currently the only candidate with experience in managing the city’s economy.
However, with the growing number of candidates, he is facing a ratings disaster. Mr. Omelchenko is mired by similar corruption scandals to those embroiling Mr. Chernovetskiy, and a variety of opponents have accused him of illegally selling city land.
A second candidate who has little chance of victory but can boast 5% support in opinion polls is Mykola Katerynchuk. This one-time darling of the chattering democrat classes is said to harbour the lofty ambition of serving as prime minister when Ukraine finally joins the EU. While many Ukrainians know him as a fighter for taxation reform, for proletarian Kyiv citizens he remains little more than a handsome face on billboards.
Recently Yevhen Zhovtyak, a supporter of President Viktor Yushchenko, also declared that he was running, and as former governor of Kyiv Oblast he can boast an in-depth knowledge of the local economy. “I think that when the list of candidates goes public we will see that none have the preparation I do,” he says, conveniently forgetting about Mr. Omelchenko.
Commenting on the situation at a round-table meeting in April, Mykola Churylov, the general director of the Socis Centre for Social and Political Research, said: “The nightmare for Leonid Chernovetskiy ended with the failure of attempts to find a single candidate from the democratic forces.”
The Lytvyn Bloc suggests that its candidate, Victor Pylypyshyn, currently the Shevchenko District Council head, is also well-positioned as a professional in city management. “I am sure that Kyiv needs a professional who knows and understands citizens’ problems,” the candidate explained. He claims to have invited Mr. Chernovetskiy and Mr. Klitschko to a three-way debate but at the time of going to press he had not received a reply from either.
Kyiv citizens can also vote for the leader of the Party of Free Democrats, Mykhaylo Brodskiy, who is widely known by the public for emotional speeches on various TV shows and sensational declarations directed against his erstwhile allies, as well as his fight to keep city traffic moving. Mr. Brodskiy has been at different times associated with Viktor Medvedchuk’s Social Democratic Party (United), the President’s Our Ukraine and has also been a member of BYUT.
For those who like the exotic, the list of candidates includes Yehor Benkendorf, a TV producer from Inter Media Productions and a son of the famous Ukrainian film director Andriy Benkendorf. The showbiz representative promises to legalise prostitution, introduce a “luxury tax” and move the administration’s buildings, including the Verkhovna Rada, to the outskirts of Kyiv if he wins.
Confusing and contradictory polls
In line with Ukraine’s fledgling democratic traditions this election has been accompanied by a whole host of flags, tents, billboards and opinion polls, few of which have produced results that correlated. According to a poll conducted by the Intersociosystema company in April, Mr. Klitshcko could get 32.6% of all votes, Mr. Chernovetskiy 22.2%, while Mr. Turchynov’s rating is 6.7% and Mr. Omelchenko’s 6% with Mr. Katerynchuk on 5.5%. Figures from the Socium centre place Mr. Chernovetskiy in the lead with 29.6% support of voters, while Mr. Klitschko can look forward to only 20.7% of the vote. Mr. Omelchenko and Mr. Turchynov would have 7.1% each and Mr. Pylypyshyn would be in line for 6.7%.
Mr. Holobutskiy states that these figures serve to confuse the candidates and their teams. “The main problem for all candidates, except Mr. Chernovetskiy, is that they don’t know their voters and they don’t know towards whom to orientate. They understand that Mr. Chernovetskiy’s core voters are engaged, but they don’t know whom they are appealing to,” he explains.
Paying for promises
In this broad electoral field, candidates are making big promises to stand out. Vadym Hladchuk promises to make the city’s metro system free if he wins. Mr. Turchynov says he will build accommodation for vulnerable groups and families with many children. Mr. Pylypyshyn meanwhile says that his first step as mayor will be the introduction of a municipal pension for all elderly Kyivites. Mr. Benkendorf plans to launch a special fee for all non-resident cars coming to the Ukrainian capital.
As well as making his own promises, Mr. Chernovetskiy has been spending freely - a little too freely according to some. As well as the expense of campaign materials, the current city authorities have been accused of actively spending budget funds to secure voter support. For example, on April 1, Mr. Chernovetskiy signed a decree for the distribution of out one-time material aid to vulnerable members of society in Kyiv who “found themselves in difficult circumstances.” The city budget will provide USD 300,000 for these disadvantaged voters.
Opponents of the Mayor accuse him of setting the city’s finances up for ridicule and leaving a major problem for any successor. “Any new Kyiv administration will be in a very difficult situation because Kyiv’s current budget is already distributed and any team that comes will to power will have to deal with the problem of a city budget deficit in Q3, unfortunately,” Mr. Bondarenko of Klitschko’s Bloc laments.
“During the next month we will come to understand that this fight for the mayor’s position is no political sideshow. There is so much money here that to be the mayor of the city is probably more profitable than [to be] the President of the country,” suggests Mr. Holobutskiy at the Agency on Modeling Situations.
