Election Day in Ukraine: the mayor of Kharkiv and two other deputies of the Rada are elected
On October 31, by-elections of parliamentary deputies will take place in two constituencies of Kherson and Cherkasy regions. Also on this day, Kharkiv residents elect a mayor instead of Gennady Kernes, who died in December 2020.
Naturally, a number of communities elect village, town and city mayors.
BBC News Ukraine has collected information about the main participants in the election race.
Kherson region. Personnel changes earn victories
In the №184 constituency, he elects a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada in place of Igor Kolykhayev, who won the parliamentary elections in 2019 and was elected mayor of Kherson in 2020.
The district covers Nova Kakhovka, Beryslav district, as well as parts of Kakhovka and Kherson districts.
In the 2019 parliamentary elections, this constituency in the Kherson region, where the representative of the “Servant of the People” lost, so it is fundamentally important for the presidential parties to win here.
Igor Kolykhayev, the head of the Prodexim trading house and a former deputy of the regional council from Petro Poroshenko’s bloc, then won as a self-nominated candidate, leaving the “servant of the people” in second place.
One of the most active candidates for parliament in this election was Kolykhayev’s ally from the “Let’s Live Here” party, Deputy Chairman of the Regional Council Gennady Laguta.
Another candidate for the mandate – the head of the Kherson regional state administration Serhiy Kozyr – is supported by the presidential party “Servant of the People”.
A few days before the day of the presidential election, Volodymyr Zelenskyi unexpectedly fired Serhiy Kozyr and recognized Gennady Laguta in his place.
Local media are watching and bloggers on social media have written that Zelensky’s decision was aimed at eliminating the main rival of the pro-government candidate Serhiy Kozyr.
Although he had to sacrifice the governor’s post for his opponent.
Prior to these events, three registered candidates included Hennadiy Laguta, two Serhiy Kozyr and another candidate named Kolikhayev.
By all indications, it was a technology of “doubles” to select votes from rivals. Two weeks before the election, all of them withdrew their candidates, except for one Gennady Laguta, an unemployed man from Ivano-Frankivsk.
Although “Opposition platform – For life!” in the early parliamentary elections in 2019 she took second place after the presidential party, in the by-elections of her candidate OPZZH did not run.
Igor Yosypenko, one of the heads of the Zlato Tavriya agricultural enterprise, is running for European Solidarity.
The Svoboda party, Volodymyr Beryslavsky, nominated its candidate.
The ballot paper includes the daughter of a former Batkivshchyna deputy of Yuriy Odarchenko’s convocation, Kateryna Odarchenko from Kyiv, who heads the National Platform party.
Candidates also include representatives of political entities, but they did not campaign actively.
Cherkasy region. The technology of the “clone” is being investigated by the police
Voters of the №197 constituency are re-electing a member of parliament, as TV presenter Oleksandr Skichko, who won the early elections in 2019, was appointed head of the Cherkasy regional state administration.
The district includes Kaniv, Zolotonosha and surrounding areas.
Among the 25 candidates, only two represent parties that have factions in the Verkhovna Rada: the Servant of the People and the European Solidarity.
Vitaliy Voitsekhivsky, the long-term mayor of Zolotonosha, is running for the People’s Servants. Earlier, he was elected mayor from various political forces, including the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, but in 2019 he became mayor of the “Servant of the People” party.
The European Solidarity nominee is a former Kremlin political prisoner, journalist Roman Sushchenko, who now works as deputy head of the Cherkasy region.
Another candidate – Vladislav Golub – was a member of the previous vote, the eighth parliament from the BPP, but in 2017 he left the faction. He also ran in 2019 as a self-nominated candidate, but lost to the current head of the Cherkasy Regional State Administration. He is the leader of the public organization “Together we are a powerful force.”
There are two more Pigeons in the ballot – Vladislav and Vyacheslav. Both candidates provided a minimum of information about themselves that does not work, from which “Support” concludes about the technology of “clones”.
Vitaliy Wojciechowski, a nominee for power, also had a double. However, now the mayor of Zolotonosha may not worry – there will be no other such name in the bulletin.
Law enforcement officers opened a criminal case and sent the twin candidate to the end of the night home, finding out that shortly before the election he completely changed his self, and also became Vitaly Wojciechowski. The investigation finds out with whom he conspired.
The list of candidates includes the deputy chairman of the Svoboda party and former MP Andriy Ilenko, as well as a former member of the party, frontman of the Shadow of the Sun music group Serhiy Vasyliuk, and a representative of the ex-Liberal party Yuriy Levchenko Narodovladdya.
Dmytro Kukharchuk is running for the National Corps.
Many other candidates did not run for office, Opora said.
After the start of the election process, the CEC changed the center of the constituency from Kaniv to Zolotonosha, where the candidate from the “Servant of the People” is in charge.
Volodymyr Zelenskyi came to this constituency before the election.
Kharkiv. The two candidates call themselves Kernes’ successors
In Kharkiv, the mayor is elected on this day.
Former mayor Gennady Kernes died in December 2020 in a German clinic, a few months after he elected mayor of Kharkiv.
At the time of his election, he had been in intensive care for a long time, first in Ukraine, then in the German Charité clinic, but this did not prevent him from becoming mayor for the third time.
10 candidates are running in the election. Most of them are self-nominated, and only three represent parties: the Kernes Bloc is a successful Kharkiv, the European Solidarity Party, and the Sharia Party.
Two candidates were close to Gennady Kernes and use this fact in every way in campaigning.
The first is the former mayor of Kharkiv and former head of the Kharkiv regional state administration, one of the most prominent members of the Party of Regions under Viktor Yanukovych, Mykhailo Dobkin. He is supported in this election by the OPZZh party, but Mykhailo Dobkin is running as a self-nominated candidate.
In an interview with BBC News Ukraine this spring, Dobkin said he considered it his duty to continue the case of the late mayor, with whom they had friendly relations.
However, in the last years before Kernes’ death, their relationship was cool.
Another candidate who considers himself the successor of the late mayor is Kharkiv City Council Secretary Ihor Terekhov. He has been acting mayor since Gennady Kernes became seriously ill.
Igor Terekhov, who is running for the Kernes Bloc – Successful Kharkiv party, said that Kernes saw him as his future successor.
Well-known local businessmen Pavlo Fuchs and Oleksandr Yaroslavskyi publicly declared their support for Terekhov.
Instead, Mykhailo Dobkin asserts that Terekhov is the man of the former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Arsen Avakov from Kharkiv, although the latter did not show any sympathy.
Alina Mustafayeva, an activist of the Servant of the People party, is running in the election as a self-nominated candidate. By profession, she worked in the ambulance, but in recent years has been in business and is deputy director of “Autoenterprise”.
Volodymyr Pletnyov, a deputy of the political council from this political force, is running for the Sharia Party, although in the 2019 elections he was included in the list of the OPZH in the Verkhovna Rada.
“European Solidarity” is represented by the deputy of the Kharkiv regional council Alexander Skoryk. He is the general director of the meat-packing plant and, according to local observations, does not run an active election campaign.
His candidacy was supported by the Voice party.
Konstantin Nemichev, who serves in the Azov Regiment in Donbas, is an activist of the National Corps and positions himself as “the only candidate from the pro-Ukrainian forces.” He was supported by several parties, but on the ballot he was self-nominated.
Serhiy Ryapolov, who was recognized as a victim in the case of the victory of two Kharkiv residents during the Euromaidan in January 2014, is running for mayor. The abduction case is still pending in the courts.
The accused in the case are the late Gennady Kernes and his two bodyguards, but Kernes’ family insists on an acquittal.
If the mayoral candidates do not receive 50% of the votes in favor, a second round of voting will be called for the participation of the two candidates who took first and second places.