You're reading: Election 2012 blog: Obolon’s district 217 offers high caliber field

Where: Obolon district of Kyiv

Polling stations: 79

Number of voters: 171,683

Number of candidates: 25

Remarks: No clear favorite in crowded constituency

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.

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