Kyiv Mayoral Elections 2008: Face the Candidates
As of today, the main contenders are incumbent Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky, world-famous boxer Vitaliy Klychko, and Vice-Premier Oleksandr Turchynov, BYuT.
Polls put Chernovetsky, who has improved his standing, and Klychko, who pins hope on late deciders, in the high 20s to low 30s range.
With an approval rating of just 4 percent, BYuT's pick for mayor, Turchynov, faces an uphill battle in converting his party's strong local showings into personal gains.
Mayor beater Yuriy Lutsenko, NUNS, chose not to run. Vasyl Horbal of the Party of Regions will not make it, and neither will former mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko.
However, in a single-round election, smalltime and namesake candidates have considerable nuisance value: siphoning votes. Their power may determine the outcome. Vitaliy Klychko: For me, the decision to run for mayor of Kyiv is balanced, thoughtful and clear-cut. I’m not going to quit, and all agreements on fielding a joint candidate are a matter of political agreement.
Vitaliy Klychko: You know, I’ll use my hands if I have to; I, for one, will use my hands, my feet, and, primarily, my head. I am responsible for the team — the team of professionals — that I bring with me. Those are professional people, moral people, people that are known in Kyiv: Vitalyi Klychko, Ivan Plachkov.
Comment: To an ordinary Kyivite, Ivan Plachkov, a former Energy Minister, hardly rings a bell. And what about those land barons on your teams?Kyiv Mayor Leonid "Kosmos" Chernovetsky: I’m going to run my campaign on a positive note, I don’t…I know a lot of things, I can talk for days about the misdeeds of various people, but I myself, as a believer, can’t say that I’m absolutely sinless. There are no sinless people in this world. There was only one person, Jesus Christ, but he ascended to heaven.
Comment: And what planet are you heading for after you’re done with your earthly business? But wait a minute, aren’t Christians supposed to follow Christ? Isn’t that the idea behind Christianity?Vice-Premier Oleksandr Turchynov: Unfortunately, there are historical examples, namely Hitler, who, before attacking some democratic country, would accuse it of all mortal sins. And after that, to promote some interests of his own, he would start the aggression. Unfortunately, the actions of Mr. Baloha remind me of this historical example. You know that our bloc has done everything to build the coalition, our bloc has done everything to ensure the coalition’s normal functioning, and will continue working within the boundaries of the coalition agreement to carry out the duties that we assumed before the Ukrainian people as well as before our allies.
Comment: Too much lofty rhetoric, too little time to make the BYuT brand work for you. Any land lovers on your team?Yuriy Lutsenko, Minister of the Interior: The full brunt of responsibility for defeating Chernovetsky lies with the BYuT and Klychko Bloc leadership. Once again, I call on them to use political acumen, I call on them to meet and I’m ready to pose as a moderator during that meeting in order to reach a serious, principled agreement to join our forces.
Comment: Any progress on the X-files? The truth is out there?
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2 comments:
Why is Klichko speaking in Russian!!!!!!????????????
Also, two articles slightly off-topic, but I thought some of your readers might be interested.
A story about Ruslana on www.npr.org, and energy conservation efforts in Ukraine. It seems to me that if Ukraine becomes energy-efficient, the economy will improve immensely - down to an individual level - and all those people greedy for fancy cell-phones and cars would be able to afford them, rather than spending money on - utilities.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89436819&ps=bb1
The video link is here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89436819
Second story about Rasha's refusal to recognize the Ukrainian Holodomor as genocide, from the Los Angeles Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-oe-goldberg8apr08,1,1668592.column
With all due respect, I must admit that Yanukovych learned Ukrainian faster than Klychko.
Thanks for the links, Elmer!
The article about Ruslana’s push for renewables certainly makes more sense to me than Andrew Slivka’s assessment of Kyiv’s transportation problems.
And the Duma’s new-fashioned Holodomor-denial campaign deserves special note. In a fatal credibility blow to their previous campaign of denying the very idea of manmade famine, they are now "merely" denying the genocide component.
Since proving genocide requires more evidence and UN support than Ukraine has gathered, the Kremlin’s master plan is to have Ukrainians let off steam and let the issue die quietly.
Here’s what the new campaign boils down to: “OK, you win. We did starve you by the million, but it wasn’t genocide. It was a Communist misstep, and we [as the sole successor to the Soviet Union] had nothing to do with it. In fact, we nearly starved to death, too! Now, can we please get over this?”
And by the way, there’s quite a bit of opinion diversity in the LA Times coverage of Russia.
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