Early on March 21 Kyiv’s residents came one step closer to knowing when they get to elect a new mayor and city council following months of gridlock and heated debate in parliament.
The Verkhovna
Rada, the nation’s legislature, selected June 2 as the election date in a first
reading. The “draft instruction” still needs to pass a second reading in two weeks
before it enters into force.
A total of 293
of the 365 registered members of parliament supported the June election date,
including 146 Party of Regions faction members, 73 from Batkivschyna, 33 from UDAR,
32 from Svoboda, and nine independents, Interfax-Ukraine reported.
Members of the
Communist Party faction abstained.
Kyiv has been without an
elected mayor since June 3, 2012, when the five-year term of multimillionaire
Leonid Chernovetsky expired. But he had essentially been stripped of his power
in November 2010, when President Viktor Yanukovych appointed Oleksandr Popov to
head the Kyiv State Administration. Pro-presidential lawmakers had also heavily
diluted the mayor’s powers and shifted them to the administration head’s
position.
Secretary of Kyiv City Council Halyna Hereha has since been the city’s
acting mayor, though deprived of much of the decision making.
The March 21 parliament decision also scheduled
mayoral elections to be held on June 2 in Vasylkiv (Kyiv Oblast), Alchevsk
(Luhansk Oblast) and the Crimean city of Yalta.
Who’s in the
race?
Popov, the city’s manager has said he plans on not only running for Kyiv
mayor, but topping the vote count. “I will win!” he told journalists at a
press conference in February.
A number of Ukrainian experts have speculated that independent lawmaker and
former Foreign Minister Petro Poroshenko could be nominated by the opposition
as their candidate.
Opposition party faction leaders said on March
21 that they will announce their candidate for Kyiv mayor as soon as the date
of the election is scheduled.
There has been talk in the past few weeks that UDAR leader Vitali Klitschko,
Batkivschyna leader Arseniy Yatseniuk or even Svoboda leader Oleh Tiahnybok
could run as the opposition candidate.
“(We will also announce) the list of all
candidates for single-mandate districts in Kyiv,” said Tiahnybok.
The three told reporters they plan on big
victories in both the mayoral and council elections, to be followed by a
no-confidence vote against Popov.
“If we win the position of Kyiv mayor and if the
opposition forms the majority in Kyiv City Council, then we will express
no-confidence in the head of Kyiv City State Administration (Popov) as soon as
possible,” Yatseniuk said. “Those whom Kyiv’s residents elect, will lead
Kyiv.”
Leader of the Radical Party Oleh Liashko said earlier this month that he
intends to run in the mayoral race as well.
“I’ve made up my mind to run for mayor of Kyiv. I will put things right
in the capital and free our city of the regionaires (representatives of the
Party of Regions),” he said March 4. “Kyiv will become an outpost of radical
changes in the state. And every resident of Kyiv will know that their mayor
defends their interests.”
He said he would also lead the Radical Party in the Kyiv City Council
elections.
Kyiv Post staff
writer Christopher J. Miller can be reached at [email protected].
