It sure looks like President Viktor Yanukovych’s friends are aligning to give the knockout punch to Vitali Klitschko’s presidential ambitions.
With Yanukovych’s top political enemy, ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, safely tucked away in prison since 2011, the president’s allies seem to have taken aim at the person they regard as the next biggest threat: Vitali Klitschko.
In recent days, Klitschko, the popular world heavyweight boxing champion and opposition member of parliament, has been denied permission to land in Kyiv on a charter flight. A pro-government journalist on TV asked him whether he fathered a child out of wedlock.
Hackers made public his personal emails and infiltrated the website of his Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reforms party, or UDAR, which stands for “punch” in Ukrainian. Pictures of him have appeared online, allegedly doctored, with a woman who is not his wife. Unfavorable stories of him have appeared on a mysterious website.
All of that, combined with a new law that may disqualify his candidacy because of his official status as a resident in Germany, it looks like Klitschko is the new punching bag for his political enemies. On the same day of the law’s passage, Oct. 24, Klitschko announced his candidacy.
Of course, none of these attacks is traceable to the president, who has taken the high road in public regarding Klitschko’s potential challenge.
But Klitschko – who polls show would defeat Yanukovych if the presidential election were held today – and his supporters say they are victims of an orchestrated campaign to harass and ruin his reputation ahead of the 2015 election.
“All of these provocations, dirt and lies started after Klitschko announced his candidacy for president,” said Oksana Zinovyeva, Klitschko’s spokesperson. “Our biggest rival is Yanukovych, so we believe that it all comes from the government’s camp.”
Others say he’s simply fair game in Ukraine’s cutthroat world of politics and should expect what comes to him.
“It was my personal will to show Klitschko that, according to European rules, the level of privacy of a politician decreases after they announce their candidacy to run for president,” said Vyacheslav Pikhovshek, who on Nov. 25 asked the politician on ICTV whether he fathered a child out of wedlock.
The journalist added that his questions were not part of a smear campaign.
Since the 42-year-old politician is the only person so far announced his intent to challenge Yanukovych, his adherents say this natural puts him in the crosshairs.
Klitschko now operates only his public page on Facebook, after hackers broke into his personal email account on Nov. 22, the email of his UDAR party’s press service, as well as his other social media pages.
This prompted all UDAR lawmakers on Nov. 27 to close their Facebook pages, fearing attacks from hackers. They warned media against the use of falsified information allegedly posted by them in social media, the party website reported.
“Literally one hour after I wrote my last post on Facebook and called on everyone to come to Maidan, today my account was hacked and dirty lies and nonsense were posted on it. Then they broke into my Vkontakte account as well,” Klitschko said through his party’s website on Nov. 22.
The most shocking post published on behalf of Klitschko provided a link to a Flickr page with dozens of photos showing him posing arm-in-arm with numerous attractive women. Hackers also published Klitschko’s correspondence with Ukrainian model Zoryana Vyshynska. According to screenshots of letters, Vyshynska gave birth to his child.
UDAR’s press service denounced the letters as forgeries.
Attacks persisted on Nov. 25-26 when the Facebook pages of UDAR and Klitschko’s deputy party head Vitali Kovalchuk were hacked. A fake message posted on the UDAR website proclaimed that Klitschko didn’t support the nationalist Svoboda party that is part of the troika of opposition parties that includes Batkivshchyna.
UDAR spokesperson Zinovieva denied the assertion.
Much of the allegedly fake information published about Klitschko and his party wound up on the mysterious website Ukrainska Kryvda. Several media analysts have told the Kyiv Post that it is backed by people close to the government.
On Nov. 24, Klitschko missed the main pro-European rally after his chartered plane wasn’t allowed to land in Kyiv. He instead landed in Kryvyi Rih, 400 kilometers south of Kyiv. Later on the same day, the State Border Service said customs didn’t process him after arriving from the Hamburg flight.
Klitschko said he didn’t need customs clearance because he holds a diplomatic passport.
“I believe that at least a part of the president’s team deems Vitali the main rival, which is basically true,” said Volodymyr Fesenko, head of Penta political think tank. “So I think there was an order to start massively destroying his reputation.”
Klitschko is also believed to be competiting with Batkivshchyna’s Arseniy Yatseniuk and Svoboda’s Oleh Tiahnybok as leader of the opposition.
Some lawyers, however, believe that the tax code changes are not enough to bar Klitschko from running for president. New provocations may appear in the coming months, Fesenko said, adding that they will not necessarily harm the boxer’s popularity. The dirty campaign against the politician could bring him more sympathy and more supporters, he said.
“It may eventually have an opposite effect, that’s why I wouldn’t advise Klitschko’s opponents to play too much with this,” Fesenko said.
Kyiv Post staff writers Oksana Grytsenko and Kateryna Kapliuk can be found at [email protected] and [email protected], respectively.
