Although the campaign for the Kyiv city mayor’s office is only just starting, experts are already saying that, barring a miracle, the future mayor will be the man who effectively runs the city at present: Kyiv City Administration head Oleksandr Omelchenko.
Publicity-wise Omelchenko has been diligently using his current position to develop contacts and groom his image. The result is that he has huge leads in pre-election polls for Ukraine’s first legitimate mayoral election.
To be sure, Omelchenko will not lack rivals in the race. By the time the Post went to press, more than 36 candidates had officially registered for the May 29 election, with the deadline for registration on April 29. But the muddled stew of contenders will only help Omelchenko’s chances, experts say.
‘No matter how many candidates there are, the [city administrator] is going to win,’ said Oleksandr Stehny, a political analyst with the Socis-Gallup polling firm. He added that Omelchenko will gain at least 20 percent more votes than his closest competitor, if current polls are to be believed.
Socis-Gallup has conducted only one recent opinion poll, but the results remain confidential because it was contracted by Omelchenko himself.
A previous Socis-Gallup poll conducted in February among 400 Kyivans found that 40.5 percent would vote for Omelchenko. His nearest rival, Ivan Saly, logged only 6 percent.
Omelchenko’s response was to grab Saly’s share of the vote by naming him deputy mayor.
Possibly replacing Saly as Omelchenko’s main rival will be wealthy parliament deputy Hryhory Surkis. Surkis, 49, was nominated by the Social Democratic Party (United) at a party conference on April 24.
One of a handful of Ukraine’s rich and powerful oligarchs, Surkis is well-known to many in Kyiv as the owner Dynamo Kyiv, the city’s successful and wildly popular soccer team.
Surkis’ announcement that the entire team had joined the SDPU in advance of last year’s parliamentary elections fueled a surge in popularity for the party.
Beyond his links to Dynamo, Surkis lacks appeal as a candidate, according to Stehny.
‘He is perceived as a businessman who supports sports, but not as a good proprietor,’ Stenhy said.
Among other candidates in the running are Hryhory Omelchenko, parliament’s self-appointed corruption fighter; Mykhailo Brodsky, the former owner of daily newspaper Kievskie Vedomosti; Valery Babych, the head of the All-Ukrainian Christian Union; and Vitaly Zhuravsky, the head of the Christian Democratic Party.
All of those men are parliament deputies who would have to give up their Rada seats in case of victory.
According to Mykola Tomenko, director of Institute of Politics, their status as politicians is not likely to help them. He said that 87 percent of city residents say they favor a mayor who they perceive as a proprietor of the city, while only 5 percent a mayor who is already a politician.
Omelchenko’s has carefully cultivated his image as a proprietor. He builds water wells across the city, lays new asphalt on the city roads, and gives out money to pensioners and war veterans on holidays. He appears at almost all public events in the city, from the construction of a new plant or house, to a wreath-laying ceremony at the monument to Chernobyl victims.
As Omelchenko knows perfectly well, newspapers give ample coverage to all of those events. Omelchenko’s face appears frequently on the cover of major Kyiv dailies as well as the eight-page freebies that get delivered for free straight to the mailboxes of every Kyiv household.
In the face of such popularity, many potential Omelchenko opponents have already come out in support of him, knowing that it will get them nowhere to be on the bad side of a politician who will most likely be in control of the city for the next four years. The Green Party and Hennady Udovenko’s branch of the Rukh party are among those.
‘[Omelchenko] is not ideal, but he has done something in this city, like introducing alternative water sources, improving the transport system and cleaning up the Dnieper,’ said Ihor Havrylov, head of the Kyiv branch of the Green party.
Four parties, 22 public organizations and 755 groups of electors have handed official documents declaring support for Omelchenko to the Kyiv electoral committee.
By contrast, only the SDPU and one electoral group have officially pledged support for Surkis thus far.
According to Tomenko, the only way to run successfully against Omelchenko would be to try to taint his name in the press.
Rumors are flying that Surkis may have already gotten the idea. A source close to Kievskie Vedomosti said told the Post that the oligarch has obtained some measure of interest in the paper, which fellow candidate Brodsky used to own (see related article, page 6). The nature of that interest remains unclear, and both the paper and Surkis’ office declined to confirm the rumor.
Kievskie Vedomsti has been running less-than-flattering articles about Omelchenko in almost every issue since it resumed publication on April 24 after a two-month hiatus.
In an article specifically about the mayoral election, the paper lambasted Omelchenko’s costly overhaul of Kyiv’s central street, Kreshchatyk, last summer. Regardless, Stehny said, nothing will stop Omelchenko.
‘Only a political decision can make a difference – only if somebody on Bankivska [the street where the presidential administration is located] decides that [Omelchenko] should withdraw,’ Stenhy said.
Omelchenko, however, had his current position handed to him by presidential appointment three years ago and by all accounts still enjoys the president’s overwhelming support (although Sirkus is also known to be close to the president).
The city administrator has been anxiously eyeing this election as a chance to legitimize his power.
‘There is no way I can lose; my popularity can only grow,’ he told the Post in an interview in March.
