Where: Dzerzhynskiy region of Kharkiv city.
District 168.
Polling stations: 88.
Number of voters: 169,341.
Number of candidates: 20.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city and close to the Russian border, is seen by many as a place where allies of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych will try to regain power.
In the Oct. 26 parliamentary election, the district 168 race features Valeriy Pysarenko, an incumbent from the former Party of Regions, and 19 other candidates.
Pysarenko, like most in the then-ruling party, voted for the Jan. 16 “dictator laws” that restricted free speech and free assembly in the waning days of the Yanukovych administration. The laws backfired and fueled more intense protests that drove Yanukovych from power on Feb. 22.
He was elected twice to parliament from the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko, but left after the former prime minister got arrested and subsequently imprisoned in 2011. He was re-elected in 2012 as a member of the ruling Party of Regions. Such turncoats were labeled as “tushka” – literally an animal carcass.
Pysarenko, 34, heads the Rada committee for legal policy, and is now running as a self-nominated candidate.
“Today reality demands hard work, decisive actions, responsible deeds from everyone,” Pysarenko’s program begins. “I consider further efforts are needed to renew Kharkiv, represent interests of Kharkiv citizens in parliament and protect their rights.”
He promotes constitutional reform, decentralization and more right to the regions and special status for the Russian language, but tries to avoid any mention about current military actions in the neighboring oblast or Russia’s occupation of Crimea.
Vitaly Nemilostivy
Just as in other single mandate districts, political forces that supported the EuroMaidan Revolution failed to chose one strong candidate in this constituency against Pysarenko.
The bloc of President Petro Poroshenko nominated Vitaly Nemilostivy, 46, a current member of parliament with controversial reputation. Like Pysarenko, he was also elected from Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party list but six months later left the faction together with three other candidates.
After that, Nemilostivy often voted together with the ruling Party of Regions but never entered this faction, although he was still considered a “tushka.”
Yanukovych once awarded Nemilostiviy a state honor as a “recognized industry worker of Ukraine.”
He did not vote for the “dictatorship laws” on Jan. 16 that limited freedom of speech and assembly.
Nemilostiviy did come to the Rada on Feb. 20 to help parliament adopt laws crucial to a transition of power after Yanukovych fled overnight on Feb. 21-22.
“I was born and have been working all my life in Kharkiv,” Nemilostiviy wrote in his electoral program. “I am sure that the right way of social and economic changes will be the solution in this time difficult for our country.” He believes that airspace, military and engineering industries can provide a breakthrough for the Ukrainian economy.
Like other candidates aligned with Poroshenko, his program contains other measures to introduce more accountability and changes over government, including law enforcement.
Despite Kharkiv’s position near the Russian border, Nemilostiviy stands for the territorial integrity of Ukraine and against federalization, but he did not mention the question of Russian-occupied Crimea. He says his priority in foreign policy is Ukraine’s full membership in the European Union.
Ivan Varchenko
Arseniy Yatseniuk People’s Front nominated Ivan Varchenko, 40, the acting deputy governor of Kharkiv Oblast and a member of the regional council. A native of Kharkiv, he was one of the organizers of the EuroMaidan Revolution in the city. During the protests in Kharkiv this winter his car was among those set on fire.
Varchenko begin his political career in 2005 as an adviser of former Kharkiv Oblast Governor Arsen Avakov, the current interior minister who is also running for the parliament from the People’s Front list.
“My aim is a strong, independent Ukraine able to protect itself from inner enemy, guaranty safety, provide rights and freedom for its citizens, implement reforms needed to reach European standards,” Varchenko said in his program.
Other candidates and clones
The list of candidates in district 168 includes Liubomyr Hryhorets, 46 from Batkivshchyna party; Taras Sitenko, 41, from the newly founded post-Maidan force Samopomich; Fedir Venislavskiy, 21, from Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko, also a supporter of EuroMaidan, and self-nominated Kharkiv EuroMaidan activist Volodymyr Chystilin, 40.
The large number of candidates with pro-European views could split this electorate, giving the race to the two incumbents tied to Yanukovych, while others might be confused by candidates with the same surnames, or clones.
Thus, in district 168 there are two candidates who have the same surnames as public figures. One is Kyiv pensioner Liudmyla Aleksandrovska, 67, the same surname as Kharkiv Communist Party leader Alla Aleksandrovska.
Another is Kyiv resident Anton Zhylin, the same surname as Yevhen Zhylin, a leader of a fighting club and the pro-Russian organization Oplot. This organization was suspected in the kidnapping of EuroMaidan activists and setting their cars on fire.
Apart from the incumbent Valeriy Pysarenko, there is a little known Anatoliy Pysarenko, 56, whose name comes ahead of the famous deputy in the ballot.
