With the race to the Rada coming around the far turn and heading down the homestretch, your Best Of team members couldn’t suppress the urge to ponder the profligate use and abuse of what is popularly referred to as the “administrative resource.”
Several Best Of team members used to watch politics as a spectator sport in the United States and think of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley as America’s undefeated champion in the art of turning public facilities and employees to his political advantage. We think Daley would have been proud of his Kyiv counterpart, Mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko.
The Best Of team has consequently taken a break from the usual bar/club/restaurant rounds to identify a few poignant examples of the administrative‑resource savvy displayed (prominently, we might add) by Omelchenko and his Unity Party.
Best use of an empty government‑owned building for campaign purposes
The enormous vacant‑but‑not‑unused Ukraine department store on Peremohy Square has proved an ideal venue for an undulating display of campaign posters. Each of the store’s large display windows is festooned with a colorful array of posters promoting the Unity Party and For a United Ukraine bloc.
Best use of public transportation to bolster support for a single party
Whether you’re riding the metro, a trolley bus or streetcar (or buying a token), you are never more than a couple of meters away from a campaign poster extolling the virtues of the Unity Party. Unlike paid transit‑advertising, Unity posters ride for free as an ostensible signal of support from the members of the transit workers’ union.
Best use of a monument in a campaign poster
The Best Of team doesn’t equivocate, but we arrived at a rare split decision in this category. One bold Unity Party poster features the new and much‑loathed Glory to Ukraine monument on Maidan Niezalezhnosti, while another Unity handbill incorporates a color photos of the smaller but no‑less‑flashy and also new statue of Kyiv’s patron saint, St. Michael, just across Khreshchatyk.
Best use of a government‑owned venue for a thinly veiled, politicallythemed concert
The Kyiv Operetta Theater makes its mark here with the presentation of a jazz festival March 15‑17 titled “Unity.” We don’t know just what jazz has to do with Unity and the Unity Party, but we’re sure that all was explained at the event.
Best political endorsement by a church
Following its destruction in the 1930s at the hands of Stalin’s architects, Ukrainians felt they were witnessing a miracle with the resurrection of St. Michael’s Cathedral in the spring of 2000. The beautifully reconstructed church complex soon played backdrop to a visit by U.S. President Bill Clinton and quickly went on to reassert itself as a pillar of Ukrainian Orthodox faith.
Well, now St. Michael’s has gone on to develop that multifunctional role. It’s powder‑blue facade and golden domes are currently sporting an eye‑catching yellow campaign banner of colossal (if not heavenly) proportions. For who? You guessed it: for Unity.
Simply the Best
The Best Of team is saddened to report that our odds‑on favorite for Best use of Administrative Resource, the National Opera, had to be scrubbed due to the death of Italian opera star Maximo Suckupus. The world‑class falsetto profundo was to sing the lead in a specially commissioned opera, “Oleksandr the Great” – but, alas, was fatally injured falling from the Defense of the Motherland monument. Reports say Maximo had intended to affix a Unity Party banner over the Iron Lady’s most prominent features.
