The New Man at Kyiv’s Helm

By Roman Tashleetsky

The results of Kyiv’s mayoral elections in March turned out to be even more surprising than those of the parliamentary elections. Leonid Chernovetsky, who, polls predicted would end up in third place, won the race.

According to the final results, Chernovetsky took 31.83 per cent of the vote; his main rivals, boxer Vitali Klitschko and incumbent Oleksandr Omelchenko, got 23.7 per cent and 21.2 per cent, respectively. Altogether there were 37 candidates.

Omelchenko was considered the favourite and, for this reason, he was supported by many forces of different “colours”, including the Orange parties, Our Ukraine and Tymoshenko’s Bloc. Had he won, it would have been the third term of the “unsinkable” Omelchenko, who had previously managed to adapt to any political environment at the national level. At first, he was on good terms with Kuchma and slighted Yushchenko. But when he realized that the Orange Revolution was gaining strength, he openly supported it. Omelchenko even allowed open access to the city hall, where revolutionaries could warm themselves up with free tea and sandwiches.

He was criticized by Kyivany for the rampant construction, which supplanted gardens and playgrounds in the interests of private capital. Yet, he still remained popular.

But in this election, Omelchenko exasperated the voters. Their general discontent was intensified by the recent scandal surrounding Elita-Centr, a company that gathered millions of dollars from an estimated 5,000 investors, promising to build apartments in Kyiv. Before the construction was completed, the company’s directors disappeared with the money.

It has not been proven that Omelchenko was involved, but because the project received city approval, many believe that the mayor would not been unaware of the deal at some level.

Klitschko, the head of Bloc Pora-PRP (the Party of Reforms and Order), took second place–a good result compared with Pora’s parliamentary-election showing. The famous boxer was mainly supported by young people. However, his lack of political experience reduced his chances considerably: it seemed improbable that a sportsman, even of his high calibre,  could efficiently govern a metropolis of three million. But even with these reservations, he could have become mayor, if it hadn’t been for un-
expectedly high results of Chernovetsky.

A parliamentarian from 1996 to 2006, the Kharkiv-born Chernovetsky settled in Kyiv in 1977.  One of Ukraine’s richest individuals, he is a well-known lawyer who founded and heads up Pravex, a large business conglomerate that consists of several very large enterprises, the central one being Pravex Bank, one of Ukraine’s five biggest banks.

He is also active in Embassy of God, a sect of the Pentecostal Church. What is also unusual for Orthodox Ukraine is that the newly elected mayor delivers a regular sermon on “How to earn the first million.” Unlike most Ukrainian oligarchs, Chernovetsky doesn’t hide his wealth. Most importantly, he shares some of it with the poor. He organized a free canteen for homeless and indigent people, opened medical massage salons for pensioners and publishes a free newspaper about human rights.

The media did not pay much attention to Chernovetsky’s charitable activities, and that’s why his competitors underestimated his influence among voters and his chances to win.

Now that Chernovetsky is mayor, his main task is to gather support in the city council and to form his governing team. There are 20 deputies in the council from his bloc and Chernovetsky may be supported by members of the Our Ukraine party as he was an advisor to President Yushchenko and in the recent election, along with running for mayor, he also ran as a deputy for the Verkhovna Rada (Supreme Council of Parliament) under Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine banner. (By law individuals can run for multiple levels of government, but if elected to more than one position, they must choose one.)

Chernovetsky knows how to speak Ukrainian, but usually speaks Russian.  He may likely have to switch to Ukrainian now that he is mayor, but the language issue does not seem to be a principal one for him. As a friend of Yushchenko, Chernovetsky might just start speaking Ukrainian to dance to the president’s tune.

Roman Tashleetsky is a Ukrainian graduate student at the Taras Shevchenko National University, Kyiv. He holds a diploma in English and French Language and Literature from the Lesia Ukrainka National University of Volyn.