You're reading: Clearing a path for Azarov’s son in parliament

It must be great to have a prime minister for a father. Whatever career path you decide to pursue, the powers that be and luck tend to follow you.

This certainly seems to be the case for Oleksiy Azarov, the 41-year-old son of Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov. After living abroad in Europe for years, he has embarked on a political career back home in Ukraine. The younger Azarov is running for parliament in a single-mandate district in eastern Ukraine.

While the father heads the pro-presidential Party of Regions’ election list, the son is campaigning in constituency 47, which covers the city of Slovyansk and a couple of districts in Donetsk Oblast, the party’s hotbed of support in past years.

His main rival dropped out of the race, most of the region’s media are raving about him, while both the local government and the central seem to be working to fix the problems of his constituency, be it a fallen tree or purchase of new trolleybuses.

Oleksiy Azarov, who stands to join President Viktor Yanukovych’s 31-year -old son in parliament, making him the most recent of many close relatives of influential officials to enter public office. He did not respond to Kyiv Post questions for this article.

“This is a clear-cut example of the nepotism spreading in Ukraine’s leadership, where relatives are pushing up their family within politics,” said Olexiy Haran, a political science professor at Kyiv Mohyla Academy.

This is a clear-cut example of the nepotism spreading in Ukraine`s leadership, where relatives are pushing up their family within politics— Olexiy Haran, political science professor at Kyiv Mohyla Academy

Yanukovych, whose younger son is in parliament, proclaimed on July 3 that the Verkhovna Rada “should cease to function as an elite members club.”

Mykola Azarov’s spokesman Vitaliy Lukyanenko brushed aside accusations of nepotism and favoritism. “According to the Constitution of Ukraine, every citizen of Ukraine has a right to participate in elections,” he said.

But not every citizen gets the kind of endorsements Oleksiy Azarov does.

Andriy Klyuyev, the National Security and Defense Council secretary who is in charge of the Party of Regions election campaign, praised Oleksiy Azarov on Aug. 3 for being “respected in the constituency.”
With no apparent ties to the city of Slovyansk, the younger Azarov hopes to represent the city in the nation’s top legislative body despite living much of his life in Kyiv, Switzerland and Austria in not-so-distant past while his father headed Ukraine’s influential state tax administration.

According to investigations by news portal Ukrainska Pravda, the prime minister’s son owns property in Austria. Public information about his employment history and business ventures is limited, but he is reported to have held low-level positions at Ukrainian embassies abroad. He declared about $120,000 in income from Austria in 2011, and about $74,000 in Ukraine.

Ukrainska Pravda exposed that Oleksiy Azarov lived in Vienna and printed photographs and documentary proof of ownership of his property there. His declaration states that he owns two land plots, a flat and a garage, but their locations are whitened out.

Nevertheless, Azarov, who in the past month spent much of his time in Slovyansk, runs with the slogan of “Solving problems together.” When a hurricane hit the town of Svyatohirsk outside Slovyansk, he was there with the oblast governor inspecting the damage and promising it would be fixed.

Deputy Prime Minister for Infrastructure Borys Kolesnikov came to Slovyansk recently to announce that the city’s railway station will be modernized. Suddenly, reconstruction is under way. It is scheduled to be finished by Oct. 28, Election Day. Local media reported that Kolesnikov promised five new trolleybuses for Slovyansk by the end of October.

On top of that, Oleksiy Azarov promised to solve the longstanding regional water supply problem. Slovyansk is preparing to draw a government subsidy for it.

Lukyanenko, the prime minister’s spokesman, denied that Azarov Sr. had anything to do with a recent flurry of transformations in his son’s chosen constituency. The prime minister “did not give any instructions to local authorities” as to favor his son’s campaign, Lukyanenko said.

But Haran countered that the younger Azarov would have little chance of getting into parliament without his bloodline and backing from Ukraine’s ruling Party of Regions.

Why would he make the leap into politics? Haran predicted that he, as a member of Ukraine’s ruling business and political “nomenclature,” would become “a non-public person in parliament, busy solving his own problems.”

In the meantime, photo opportunities with and endorsements by local bigwigs are pouring in. A doctor from the local health resort Slavkurort said in a recent interview that she believes Azarov-junior will breathe new life into her resort. A former Slovyansk mayor is Azarov’s authorized representative.
Taisia Povaliy, a singer who got a prominent second spot on the Party of Regions list, came to his constituency on Independence Day to sing and promote Azarov, who gave out free school bags to first-grade students.

Although Azarov has nine rivals in his constituency, the only person who could realistically be a threat to him, Valentyn Rybachuk, a relatively popular former mayor of Slovyansk, dropped out despite numerous declarations that he would run.

Soon after candidate registration ended, Rybachuk was unexpectedly appointed head of the State Mortgage Institution by the prime minister.  Rybachuk refused to discuss the issue with the Kyiv Post.
Among the remaining nine rivals of Azarov, only the names of Oleh Zontov, a town council deputy and the United Opposition’s candidate, and communist Anatoliy Khmelevoy, a former parliament member, ring a bell. But they don’t get much media attention. Zontov said that his chances of getting into the Rada are “no worse than the other nine candidates – except for Oleksiy Azarov.”

Azarov is taking no chances. His ads are plastered all over billboards in the city and come out in just about every local media source.

Sovet, the local city council’s paper, increased its circulation significantly to 50,000 copies around the time that Oleksiy Azarov started advertising, claims Zontov, who owns a small local paper. Zontov’s paper also prints Azarov’s ads. The election is “a time to make money,” he explains.
Kyiv Post staff writer Denis Rafalsky can be reached at [email protected].