A grim face looks at the pedestrians from a huge billboard in the Kyiv center.
“It is time to change the mayor,” reads the bold caption.
The claim sounds even bolder to those who know that Gennady Korban, one of the 28 candidates who run for Kyiv mayor at the Oct. 25 election, has never lived in the capital and entered politics only this year. Still he aims to take over Kyiv.
To achieve that, Korban doesn’t skimp on advertising. The
city is swamped with billboards picturing his black-and-white portrait, and his
campaign events are extensively covered on TV.
But all the expensive advertising may not be enough to
compensate for his controversial background.
Korban has a reputation as a top corporate raider
who performs hostile takeovers to order.
He doesn’t deny the title, but argues the terminology,
saying he’s been “solving conflicts” between other businesspeople for the honor.
The most famous conflict he admits he “solved” was a
takeover of a share of the Dynamo Kyiv football club from oligarch Kostyantyn
Hryhoryshyn in favor of brothers Hrygory and Ihor Surkis in the early 2000s.
In June, Korban boasted on his Facebook page that he returned a military hospital
in Dnipropetrovsk from Russian VTB bank back into a state property, using his
experience of “professional raider.”
His another distinguishing feature is a close affiliation
with oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, one of Ukraine’s richest people. The two are
friends and business partners.
When Kolomoisky was appointed
the governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in March 2014, Korban served as his first
deputy. The two friends are claiming credit for preventing the Russia-backed
separatist revolt from spreading to their region that borders the war-torn
Donbas.
Now Korban is struggling to
turn his separatist-fighting past into the political future.
“We had hard talks, captured
separatists, built checkpoints and did everything to turn Dnipropetrovsk into
the huge outpost,” he says, recalling his time in the governor’s office,
adding: “That is what real politicians should do.”
The Kyiv Post met Korban in his
newly-rented, nearly empty office in Vozdvyzhenka, one of the most prestigious
and high-priced neighborhoods in Kyiv.
Earlier that day Korban had a campaign event in the city.
Tired, he smokes at his desk.
He says right away that he
hates politics. He still runs, in order to “have a chance to make Ukraine a
better place to live.”
It may not be the real reason.
Political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko says Korban has little intention to be a
mayor but uses the campaign to promote his party, Ukrop (dill), sponsored by
Kolomoisky, before the possible early parliament election.
“Local elections are not the
goal for Ukrop, it’s only the tool,” says Fesenko.
Korban says he funds Ukrop by
himself with “a little help” of his powerful friend Kolomoisky.
“Ihor helps me with wise
counsel and finances,” he says.
It seems that Ukrop has more
than sufficient funding. While Korban runs for mayor in the capital, his friend
and another ally of Kolomoisky Boris Filatov is competing for the chair of the
mayor of Dnipropetrovsk – also under Ukrop brand, with overwhelming advertising
around the city.
Before the mayor run, Korban
tried to get into parliament at the by-election in Chernihiv city in the north
of Ukraine in July. He lost to Serhiy Berezenko, the candidate supported by the
president’s party.
In Chernihiv, Korban gained ill
fame for his blatant attempt to win over voters by giving out free groceries.
The press nicknamed him “Marshal Buckwheat.”
Three months later, he still defends his scandalous
Chernihiv campaign.
“I have nothing to be ashamed
of,” he says. “That was charity, not bribing. Before judging me, go to
Chernihiv. You’ll see that for people there it is cheaper to die than to live.
They are on the breadline.”
The millionaire claims he moved to a more modest lifestyle,
impressed by the poverty of Ukrainians and blames his opponents for not doing
that.
“That bastard (President Petro) Poroshenko is gobbling
sushi. I’m ashamed of eating sushi and oysters when the people are hungry,” he
says angrily.
At the same time, Korban doesn’t restrict himself from other
costly pleasures – such as flying a helicopter around Kyiv and writing about it
on Facebook.
His competitors in the mayor run include the current mayor
Vitali Klitschko and another politics newcomer, restaurateur Serhiy Gusovsky,
supported by Samopomich party.
With that competition, Fesenko believes Korban has no
chances to win.
If he doesn’t, Korban claims he will quit politics.
“I would run for president, but Ukraine is not ready for a Jew president,” he
says.
His non-political life is far
from boring, too. Korban survived two assassination attempts. In 2010, a bomb went
off in a restaurant where he had lunch with friend and business partner Hennady
Akselrod. Akselrod was murdered two years later, shot on the street.
The assassins were not found,
but Korban hints that he may have justice of his own. He says he hasn’t avenged
his friend yet but plans to do so.
“The law could and should be
broken if it is for a good cause,” says the mayor candidate.
Kyiv Post
writer Veronika Melkozerova can be reached at [email protected]
