Serhy Tyhypko, Ihor Bakai among high-profile names running for the 10 seats up for grabs in parliamentary by-elections scheduled for June 25
The upcoming parliamentary by-elections are unlikely to bring any new faces to Ukraine’s political scene: Instead, an array of prominent former deputies and government officials will slug it out for seats in the legislature.
The elections in many of the 10 seats up for grabs on June 25 will be one-horse races, political observers say, with the likely winners known even before registration for the by-elections finishes on May 26.
The electoral authorities called the by-elections to fill seats left vacant when lawmakers accepted positions in the government of Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko at the turn of the year. Ukrainian legislation bars lawmakers from simultaneously holding a Rada seat and a government job.
Ironically, some Yushchenko’s Cabinet ministers are now seeking to take up seats in the Rada.
One of them is Economy Minister Serhy Tyhypko, who plans to stand for election in Constituency 36 in Dnipropetrovsk oblast.
Tyhypko, who has never been a parliament deputy, has shunned the media since announcing his intention to run for parliament last week.
So political observers and the public alike are still in the dark as to why the reputedly pro-reform Tyhypko has decided to quit the Cabinet for the Rada.
It is known, however, that Tyhypko will face at least eight rivals in his constituency, which is located in the coal-mining town of Pavlohrad. The most well-known of them is Mykhailo Volynets, the head of Independent Miners’ Union.
However, analysts say that Volynets and the other contenders are unlikely to beat Tyhypko, a rich and influential power broker. Tyhypko first took up a Cabinet post in 1997 after heading one of Ukraine’s largest commercial banks, Privat Bank, for five years. He has been widely regarded as one of the Cabinet’s leading reformist lights.
Yulia Tymoshenko, deputy prime minister in charge of the energy sector and herself a former lawmaker, apparently wants to return to the Rada, but she’s keeping her options open too.
According to officials at the Central Elections Commission, Tymoshenko has filed a registration request for Constituency 99 in Kirovohrad oblast, where she has already won twice – once in 1996 and again in 1998. But days after she apparently filed her election application, Tymoshenko vehemently denied she had plans to leave the Cabinet.
“I will work for as long as I can bring the energy complex to order,” Tymoshenko told reporters on May 18. “There will not be any initiatives on my part [to leave the government].”
Tymoshenko’s close ally, lawmaker Oleksandr Turchunov, said that the application was “a setup” by rivals, and Tymoshenko never had any intention to run for parliament.
“The prime minister made a decision to fight to the end [to keep Tymoshenko], and I officially assure you that she will not run,” Turchynov said after Tymoshenko’s office directed the Post to him for comment.
Tymoshenko’s plans to reform Ukraine’s chaotic energy industry have met strong resistance from powerful market participants and have been criticized by the World Bank, leading to increasing speculation in the media that her days in the Cabinet may be numbered.
In another indirect indication that Tymoshenko may be considering standing for election, the parties of her rivals have claimed that Tymoshenko’s election workers are collecting signatures in support of her election registration.
Meanwhile, one of the deputy prime minister’s oldest foes in the energy business – former chairman of state oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy Ihor Bakai – is running in Zhytomyr oblast.
Bakai quit Naftogaz last month as his feud with Tymoshenko escalated. He also said the United States had pressured President Leonid Kuchma to fire him on the grounds of corruption.
Although his election application says he is “temporarily unemployed,” Bakai is believed to be one of the richest men in Ukraine, with many ties in the oil and gas business.
He is expected to score an easy victory over his two dozen rivals, the most well-known of whom are local beer magnate Volodymyr Deboi and Socialist Mykola Rudkovsky, who was in charge of financing last year’s presidential campaign of Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz.
The most crowded constituency in the upcoming elections is in Lviv oblast, where 30 candidates are competing.
By and large, analysts agree that the winner will be 35-year-old Taras Chornovil, son of the long-time leader of popular right-wing Rukh party, the late Vyacheslav Chornovil.
Taras Chornovil is also a member of Rukh, which is one of the most popular political parties in western Ukraine.
Another big figure in the Lviv constituency race is Lviv-born former Information Minister Zynovy Kulyk.
Analysts, however, say that he might bow out of the contest, as Kuchma is likely to appoint him to the National TV and Radio Council, a state agency in charge of licensing electronic media and allotting them air time.
