Here’s a “balanced” footage from TRK Kyiv, a hijacked municipal channel that acts as a mouthpiece for incumbent Mayor Chernovetsky.
Narrator: Meanwhile, a dozen supporters gathered outside the City Hall to rally for their candidate.
Unemployed men with signs of drinking problems Man 1: We came to vote for Krivo…for Klychko, Vladimir…Vitalik [diminutive for Vitaliy]. Man 2: What are you doing? Man 3: Hi mom! Man 4: We hope he gives us jobs, so that we don’t walk around dirty like that. Man 3: What are you staring at, man? Man 4: Klychko is a sportsman, right? Okey-dokey.
Narrator: Klychko representatives were not happy with their potential voters. They ripped out the slogan banners and chased away their candidate’s supporters.
Klychko representative: Vitaliy Klychko does not campaign with slogans like this, you understand? This whole “fella” lingo… [tears apart a faux slogan with the word пацаны (fellas)].
Narrator: Klychko hasn’t yet divulged the slogans he will use and the unique selling point of his campaign.
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?
The land of beer and sausages has supplied a sizzling update to Yanukovych’s catalogue of faux pas. Pravda picks on the following episodes, in which Yanukovych
1. Bowed prematurely during the anthem ceremony with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
2. Rebuffed Merkel’s gastronomical niceties with, “I didn’t come here to dine, but to tell you about Ukraine.”
3. Put words in Merkel's mouth on Ukraine’s EU accession prospects.
5. Projected a Boratish sense of humor, “Sitting here between two Alexanders, Kwaśniewski and Rahr, I can make a wish according to Ukrainian tradition. Whether it will come true I will tell you later.”
Scheiße! The German tour was off to a bad start when Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung came out with a scathing op-ed “Von der Marionette zum Lenker” (From Puppet to Chief) by Konrad Schuller. It wrought havoc on a soapy article “Janukowytsch für Neutralität der Ukraine” (Yanukovych for a Neutral Ukraine) published earlier in Die Welt by Russian-speaking political pundit Alexander Rahr. Pravda quotes Yanukovych as saying, “Rahr is an interesting analyst and expert, and we’ve invited him to cooperate.” Well, well, well, Paul Manafort seems to have hired a German subcontractor for his reputation laundering operation in Ukraine.
Perhaps, there’s an opening position for boxing legend and former Orange Revolution fixture Vitaliy Klychko? (He happens to be the darling of Germans by virtue of having launched his career there.) How else should we interpret his increasingly frequent public appearances in close proximity to Herr Janukowytsch?
Saturday, November 25, 2006
The Chernovetsky Challenge Kyiv Mayor Asks for More
The city that boasts the highest incomes in the country does not seem to be happy with its one-hryvnia mayor. Leonid Chernovetsky, who got the job with a meager 32 percent of the vote, could pass for a philanthropist, were it not for his determination to see to it that our cost of living remains the highest as well. What comes to mind when we think of a three-and-a-half-fold utility spike? In civilized municipalities like Paris or Berlin, they would probably set the City Hall ablaze, along with countless cars and stores. In Kyiv, they held one of the biggest rallies since the Orange Revolution. According to polls, most Kyivites want Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky out. However, attempts to veto the bill so far have failed. On Thursday, the day the rally rocked the downtown area, the opposition miserably fell short of a quorum. Leonid Chernovetsky found his way to the hearts and minds of people through their stomachs. In fact, he paid his way. As the owner of Pravex, one of the biggest banks in Ukraine, he had run for mayor in 1999 and 2002, only to be outflanked by former Mayor Oleksander Omelchenko, the longtime darling of Kyivites.
But times changed, and so did Chernovetsky’s chances. By early 2006, Omelchenko, who called the construction industry his second home, had ruined his re-election bid with a housing policy that favored the select few. That’s when Chernovetsky’s charity chain came in handy. For a period of several months before the March election, his “Salvation Army” canvassed Kyiv's elderly population. Sticking to a neat segmentation chart, his volunteers in sheepskin went to door-to-door, lavishing Pavlovian handouts on babushkas and perfecting their soft-sell technique. It worked! Even Vitaliy "Dr. Ironfist" Klychko, one of the world's most famous boxers and his rival in the election, had to throw his towel in.
Chernovetsky and Co. have imported these “best practices” to the City Council, the opposition asserts. Specifically, Chernovetsky keeps an under-the-counter “catalogue of carrots,” mainly land offerings, that he eagerly trades to maintain a manipulative majority in the City Council.
According to the opposition, to make sure the offerees keep their lips sealed, his aides got the bargaining process on “candid camera.” The most serious allegation is that Chernovetsky stands to profit from the price spike through his connections in the highly monopolized utility industry. If true, that would make Chernovetsky and Yanukovych two of a kind. The “Better Living Today” they promised turned out to be a “Big Lying Tease.” Both did a great job of teasing pensioners for personal gain: Yanukovych — with an impermanent pension increment; Chernovetsky — with humanitarian aid packages. Regardless of who you voted for, if Mayor Chernovetsky goes on unchallenged, it’s payback time for all of us. Of course, considering the vast array of fancy cars clogging the streets of Kyiv, upper and middle-class households will not experience any significant losses on this one. But what about the family budgets of such cash-starved species as school teachers and public healthcare workers?The Mayor says he’ll get the subsidies program running. The question is, how smoothly?
Of course, utility costs cannot be divorced from the reality of skyrocketing energy costs. Nor can they exceed the customers’ ability to pay.
But no matter how much we pay, improvements in service quality will not be forthcoming, unless and until measures are taken to demonopolize the industry. Kyivites have the right to know what they are paying for. Transparent utility costing should be a top priority for a local government that represents public interests. The Chernovetsky challenge has reawakened us to the need to keep tabs on local government. Our goal is constant plutocracy patrol and a City Hall with a fishbowl interface.
