You're reading: Campaigns getting dirtier ahead of Oct. 25 vote

DNIPROPETROVSK, Ukraine — On Dnipropetrovsk’s main street, a series of movable billboards are advertising a thrice-weekly TV program on the local Channel 9: "Dnipropetrovsk People’s Republic: Who led our city to war and in whose interest?"

This is the way the channel’s owner, billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, tries to persuade people that former Governor Oleksandr Vilkul backed separatism in the city – just another example of the intensifying battle for the mayoral post waged between Kolomoisky’s nominee, Borys Filatov, and Vilkul.

Vilkul was a high-ranking ally of the ousted President Viktor Yanukovych. Many in the eastern industrial provincial center of 1 million people believe in the city he sponsored Russia’s war in Donbas. An online petition to have him removed from the mayoral race has collected almost 9,000 signatures.

Whether Vilkul is a victim of black PR, or they are legitimate accusations, is not clear but what’s clear is that candidates are mounting attacks — including some below the belt — ahead of the nationwide Oct. 25 local elections.

Underhanded tactics have shown that Ukraine’s political elite refuse to change the hardball tactics, even though voters are turned off by such campaigning.

The idea is to discredit an opponent in the eyes of the voters by spreading unpleasant truths or lies. The strategies are designed by contracted teams of political technologists, similar to spin doctors, who are usually recruited by businesspeople looking to secure their interests through politics.

There are a few things that political parties in Ukraine no longer want to be associated with: the former ruling Party of Regions and disgraced president Viktor Yanukovych; the Kremlin-backed separatists and Russia, excessive wealth and, of course, corruption.

In the run-up to Election Day, hundreds of leaflets, newspapers, “documents,” TV programs and websites suddenly appear.

Similarly in Dnipropetrovsk, fliers were distributed with the Opposition Bloc’s logo which featured a picture of Yanukovych and the slogan “We’ll win!” The text below reads: “‘I am doing everything I can to hasten my return to my people, so that I can once again build a happy and rich Ukraine,’ Viktor Yanukovych.”

Novy Region: Fake Opposition Bloc leaflet featuring ex-President Viktor Yanukovych distributed in Dnipropetrovsk during the October local election campaign

Small print at the bottom of the leaflets asserts that 500,000 copies were printed.

The Opposition Bloc, a party that was created as the main successor to Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, called the leaflets a “provocation.” But political analyst Yuriy Romanenko is not so sure. He told Novy Region news agency that the Opposition Bloc itself may be promoting its association with Yanukovych.

In Kyiv, the newly founded Party of Decisive Citizen, led by former Right Sector spokesperson Boryslav Bereza, has dedicated some of its election material to smearing billionaire oligarch Rinat Akhmetov.

A front page headline of an issue of its party paper distributed in Kyiv on Oct. 10 reads: “Boryslav Bereza: Kyivenergo (a utility company co-owned by Akhmetov) should work for Kyiv and not for Akhmetov.”

Isobel Koshiw, elections, local elections, campaign, ukraine, akhmetov, bereza

(Page 3 of the Party of Decisive Citizens newspaper: “It’s time to get rid of the burden… Rinat Akhmetov seized Kyivenergo and raised the tariffs. And it’s no surprise. His luxury lifestyle – a property in London, private planes, his football team Shakhtar, all need to be paid for. Are the Kyiv residents ready to pay his bills?”)

In Ivano-Frankivsk, residents received phone calls from an organization that called itself The European Center Against Corruption. According to a local news website Vikna.ua, the questions focused on the nationalist Svoboda Party only. People reported being asked a series of similar questions including:

“Have you heard about the fact that Oleh Harkot (head of the department of architecture and urban planning on the Ivano-Frankivsk City Council) was arrested while taking a bribe of $30,000 from representatives of Svoboda? This corruption incident involved the leader of the Svoboda fraction in the City Council, Roman Onufriya and the former council secretary Ruslan Martsinkiv.”

In the city of Uzhgorod in western Ukraine, fake posters of President Petro Poroshenko’s party candidate Yaroslav Kyrlyk and the president were glued across residential areas.

Produced with the same branding as the presidential party’s election material, a typical component of black PR, these posters mocked both Poroshenko and Kyrlyk.

“A victory in the east in a few hours,” reads the caption under the portrait of Poroshenko, country’s commander in chief, who is being blamed by many for the big losses of Ukrainian army in Donbas.

“I stole land from a school,” reads the caption under Kyrlyk’s portrait and a picture of a school.

(Photo: OPORA Zarkarpattia. An example of black PR in Uzhhorod, Zakarpattia Oblast)

But the money and time spent on black PR during elections are usually wasted, political experts and election observers say.

Black PR has a negative effect on voters and they are put off, said Denys Davydov of OPORA, a civil society organization which monitors elections. Davydov gave the example of the recent by-election in Chernihiv in northern Ukraine, where the campaign was by all accounts dirty. The abundance of black PR caused a critically low turnout of only 36 percent and discredited the election results. Nevertheless, the results weren’t cancelled, and the elected lawmaker, backed by the president’s party, took his seat in the parliament.

“The attempts to make people believe that there are only two candidates, that no one else is running or they’re all the same and there’s no point because they’re all dirty is a very bad message for people,” Davydov said.

Kyiv Post staff writer Isobel Koshiw can be reached at [email protected]