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Plenty of choices in Kyiv’s Obolon district

In addition to the 22 parties on the proportional list from which to choose, voters in the Obolon constituency will choose from a diverse field of 25 candidates. That’s almost twice the national average of 13 contenders per constituency. 

Four current members of parliament are running, of whom two are members of the pro-presidential Party of Regions, yet they’re officially running as independents. 

There’s also two Kyiv City Council members, a political consultant turned politician, and former professor, now businessman running as well.

Vasyl Gureyev is the pro-presidential candidate. Running as an independent, Gureyev is looking to gain a legislative seat for the fourth consecutive time. He was economy minister and minister of industrial policy in the late 1990s and early 2000s under former President Leonid Kuchma.

The opposition’s main contender is Kyiv City Council member Oleksandr Bryhynets. He’s a former journalist who is a vociferous local campaigner on the capital’s committee of culture and tourism. This begs the question of who’ll defend Kyiv’s interests should he win a seat in parliament?

Another visible candidate is 30-year-old Party of Regions lawmaker Vadym Stolar. He’s also hiding under the independent category, and lives in Vyshgorod, although he was born and raised in Obolon. He’s reportedly friends with former Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky’s son Stepan.

The Kyiv Post has noticed Stolar fixing up playgrounds, soccer fields, and deliver gardening supplies to residents. After painting the fence and pouring new sand on a boxed field recently, Stolar’s landscapers left a horse stand with Stolar’s picture that read: “I’m a man of action, and let my deeds do the talking for me.”

The other lawmakers running are Volodymyr Lanoviy and Oleh Novikov, both from the Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense bloc.

Kyiv City Council member Vitaliy Lavrenenko of Chernovetsky ‘s bloc is another contender. In May of last year Kyiv City Council secretary Halyna Herera named Lavrenenko one of the nine most truant council members in the capital’s legislature.

Then there’s prominent political consultant Vadym Karasiov of Viktor Baloha’s Yediniy Tsentr Party. He says he wants to bring back parliamentarianism into the legislature where many seats are occupied by businessmen, or representatives of vested interests. It’ll be interesting to see whether Karasiov can apply his vast knowledge of theory into practice.

And Vitali Klitschko’s UDAR (Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform) has Yuriy Krykunov running in Obolon. He’s a former physics professor who entered the private sector in 2010. Krykunov heads UDAR’s Podil party branch.

There are plenty of choices, the good thing is that the candidates are eager to talk to voters, and that’s what they should be doing.

Where: Obolon district of Kyiv
Polling stations: 79
Number of voters: 171,683
Number of candidates: 25
Remarks: No clear favorite in crowded constituency

Six campaigners for Sviatoshyn native Volodymyr Ariev wear t-shirts that spell out his last name (Courtesy).

Kyiv’s Sviatoshyn: Native son vs. wealth

Born and raised in the capital’s Sviatoshyn district, lawmaker Volodymyr Ariev from Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna Party is facing candidates with deep pockets and successful political campaign track records.

The former journalist is the acknowledged favorite, even though he’s running against two millionaires.
Ariev, nonetheless, has legitimate challengers in developer and Kyiv City Council member Lev Partskhaladze and lawmaker Oleksandr Tretyakov.

There are other contenders running, like Poltava Oblast’s former governor Valery Asadchev and Party of Regions member Oleh Kalashnikov, who became famous for staging rallies outside the Pechersk District Court in opposition to Tymoshenko. He recorded long tirades agains her, accusing the former prime minister of being a traitor who sold out the country during her abuse-of-office trial.

Neither Asadchev nor Kalashnikov appear to be making much headway in Sviatoshyn, according to polls.

Ariev’s aide, Serhiy Skorobahatko, told the Kyiv Post that the candidate is using his home field advantage the old fashioned way – through door-to-door, courtyard-to-courtyard campaigning. And he’s doing this on a daily basis for hours at a time. Ariev and his team distribute fold-out chairs to residents, sit and just talk to voters.

“His parents worked in the neighborhood, his father at a chemical factory, his mother taught at a school, he grew up here, he knows a lot of people,” Skorobahatko said.

His rivals downplayed the native son benefits of Ariev’s campaign. Partskhaladze said he also lived in the area since he moved at the age of 15 to Kyiv from Georgia. The voter district also includes small parts of Podil, Obolon and the wooded Pushcha Vodytsia area of the capital.

“Big deal, I went to school in the area, I could also be considered a native son,” said Partskhaladze, a self-made millionaire. Partskhaladze told the Kyiv Post his poll numbers have him neck-in-neck with Ariev.
“As a city councilman, I’m in a better position to talk to people about what’s happening in Kyiv.”

Lev Partskhaladze

Partskhaladze’s main liability is the fact that he jumped ship to the pro-presidential faction from Vitali Klitschko’s UDAR (Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform) Party after he got elected into the Kyiv City Council. 

“Plus builders aren’t popular people in Kyiv, just look at how developers have scarred the city,” said Tretiakov. Once a powerful backer of ex-President Viktor Yushchenko, Tretiakov is a skillful campaigner. He also de-emphasized Ariev’s local roots.

“Look, I’m also from Kyiv. Nobody divides it into neighborhoods,” Tretiakov told the Kyiv Post. “I visited the school that Ariev attended, and you know what, they ended up supporting me…plus people are disappointed with the current lot of politicians – there are some 40 percent undecided in this district.”

Tretiakov said his polls show he’s in close second place but that his main competitor is Partskhaladze who he says is the pro-presidential candidate. He said his rating has been rising the fastest in the constituency.

Oleksandr Tretiakov

Still Ariev’s campaign poll numbers paint a different picture. Ariev so far leads with 16 percent, Partskhaladze comes in distant second with 8 percent, while Tretiakov has only one percent.
“We’re more concerned with how the election commissions will behave in the constituency, they’re stacked with people from dummy parties,” said Skorobahatko.

And should Ariev get re-elected, he plans to cement the district with local representation in the city council.  The city’s legislature will have new councilmen voted in 2014, and Sviatoshyn gets allotted several from its district. 

Where: Sviatoshyn district of Kyiv
Polling stations: 75
Number of voters: 150,294
Number of candidates: 18
Remarks: Home base of Batkivshchyna’s Volodymyr Ariev

Having entered politics as a small business advocate, opposition lawmaker Ksenya Lyapina is the United Opposition’s candidate in Kyiv’s Dnipro district (UNIAN).

Lawmakers clash in Kyiv’s Dnipro district

Although there are three lawmakers in this left bank Kyiv race, the real fight is between two of them. The United Opposition’s candidate is veteran lawmaker and small business advocate Ksenya Lyapina.
Lyapina was once ex-President Viktor Yushchenko’s adviser when he was prime minister and failed to get into parliament in 2002 during her first try with Our Ukraine, but made it in 2006.

She evidently didn’t make Batkivshchyna’s Party list, having recently left the Our Ukraine faction, but now is running under the mantle of the opposition Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko She currently is the deputy chair of parliament’s committee on industrial and regulatory policy and entrepreneurship.

A native of Kyiv, Lyapina has been a critic of several laws passed by the pro-presidential majority in parliament, including the tax code, which she says makes the underground economy bigger, and the law on public procurement, which has been criticized for making corruption in that sector easier.

She faces Oleksandr Suprunenko, a pro-presidential Party of Regions lawmaker who is running as an independent. Suprunenko’s brother, Viacheslav, was once married to ex-Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky’s daughter, Khrystyna.

Suprunenko also was a Kyiv City Council member in 2006-2007 with his brother Viacheslav before being elected to parliament for the first time in 2007.

Viacheslav is currently wanted for assault related to a criminal case that was opened in April 2011. Suprunenko is a native of this district and he says his law firm has provided thousands of residents with pro bono legal assistance. 

The other lawmaker is Volodymyr Herasymchuk, of speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn’s bloc. Not surprisingly, Herasymchuk is running as an independent.

Nominally, Danylo Svyshchuk is the Party of Regions’ candidate. Little is known about him except for that he’s a business executive and chairman of a charity fund. He’s running on a platform to continue the reforms launched by President Viktor Yanukovych’s administration. 

Where: Dnipro district of Kyiv
Polling stations: 74
Number of voters: 158,938
Number of candidates: 27
Remarks: A clear choice: Opposition lawmaker vs. pro-presidential lawmaker.

Kyiv Post staff writer Mark Rachkevych can be reached at [email protected].