You're reading: Lyashko’s party set to win seats with radical populism

Oleh Lyashko is serving a third consecutive parliamentary term. He has had no memorable legal initiatives, and voters know him for bringing a cow to parliament, eating soil at the podium, and brandishing a pitchfork that later became a part of his brand.

But perhaps the most fascinating thing is that his theatrical strategy seems to be working well with Ukrainian voters. Over the past year, the popularity of his Radical Party has shot from less than 2 to 14 percent among those who say they’ll vote in the Oct. 26 snap parliamentary election, according to a SOCIS poll published on Sept. 15.

President Petro Poroshenko’s bloc is the only party ahead of Lyashko’s at the moment, with 25 percent of voters favoring it. The 41-year-old politician would not provide commentary on this story.

Political experts say that Lyashko’s success is the result of skillful play on people’s emotions that run high during times of political turbulence and warfare.

“In times of war people tend to analyze less and tend to be lured more by loud statements,” says Artem Bidenko, a political analyst who consulted Lyashko up to 2012, and who now heads the advertising department of the Kyiv city administration.

There is no political program available on the party site. In fact, Google says the website may be hacked, and only the top 10 candidates for parliamentary elections have been announced. Lyashko heads the list, followed by his personal friend Andriy Lozovyi, the commanders of Aidar and Luhansk 1 volunteer battalions, pop singer Zlata Ognievich and Olympic medalist Denys Silantiyev.

Lyashko is the only one listed with political experience. He unsuccessfully ran for president in May, receiving 1.5 million votes. During the campaign he promised to “free Ukraine from ‘parasites’; occupiers, separatists, embezzlers and corrupt officials.”

He was born in the city of Chernihiv and spent his school years in an orphanage. He worked as a journalist early on in his professional career, and served a prison term for embezzlement of public funds. Former President Viktor Yushchenko publicly accused him of featuring in several embezzlement cases.

He denies the charges.

The outspoken politician was first elected to parliament on Yulia Tymoshenko’s party ticket in 2006, but was kicked out of her faction in 2010. The official reason was cooperation with a rival political camp, but his expulsion came in the wake of a sex scandal.

In a video released by an unknown person, Lyashko confesses during an interrogation by a prosecutor to having a sexual relationship with a man called Borya. Since being gay is still taboo in Ukraine’s politics, Lyashko spent the following years posting photos of his wife and daughter, as well as manly pictures of himself on Facebook.

He founded the Radical Party, and soon began playing the firebrand role. In November 2013, when Russia started banning Ukrainian products, Lyashko brought locally-made cheese to a news briefing given by Russian chief health inspector Gennady Onishchenko.

In January he brought baseball bats and helmets to protesters who were standing up to police on Hrushevskoho Street. In May, Lyashko featured in a video where, dressed in a black military uniform, he interrogated a handcuffed man who was only dressed in underwear. The man was a high-ranking member of the self-styled Donetsk People’s Republic.

Lyashko’s popularity grew as he frequently visited the war zone, taking plenty of photo opportunities with volunteer battalions. In August, Amnesty International, the human rights watchog, accused him of numerous human rights violations in report.

“Oleg Lyashko is supposed to be a lawmaker, but he has taken the law into his own hands,” the organization said.

He has been involved in many fist fights in parliament, most recently on Aug. 14, when he received a blow from independent lawmaker Oleksandr Shevchenko.

Much of his popularity comes from traveling to the regions, speaking in down-to-earth, simple, colloquial Ukrainian language, as well as being a regular guest on the country’s most popular talk shows for the past few years. Inter TV channel, co-owned by former President Viktor Yanukovych’s chief of staff of Serhiy Lyovochkin, has been giving him regular air time frequently. Lyovochkin himself is accused of financially supporting Lyashko. Lyovochkin declined to comment on the issue, and Lyashko denies any connection, preferring to call himself a “people’s project.”

But his lifestyle is not that of a commoner. An investigation by 1+1 TV channel aired on Sept. 22 showed that he rides in an S class Mercedes and a private jet, has a luxurious private home in a Kyiv suburb, and travels with at least five bodyguards.

Lyashko’s spokesperson Veronika Yakovleva would not comment on his lifestyle, saying the 1+1 expose was no more than a smear campaign “successfully carried out by Ukrainian oligarchs.”

Over the last month the rating of Radical Party dropped from almost 20 percent in August to less than 14 percent in September, according to SOCIS. Iryna Bekeshkina, director of Democratic Initiatives Foundation and a trained sociologist, says it’s because of growing competition in the macho candidate niche.

But she said Lyashko’s leftover popularity will be enough for his party to piggy-back to parliament.

Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at [email protected]