The most valuable outcome for observers is to get a glimpse of the real person behind the polished facade, which provides plenty of clues what the candidate will be like after election.
I trailed front-runner Petro Poroshenko for two days on the weekend of May 17-18, when he hopped close to a dozen cities in southeast Ukraine. Here are some of my more off-the- beaten-track discoveries.
A position on gay marriage
After a rally in Dniprodzerzhynsk, an industrial city in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Poroshenko was approached by a man in the crowd, who asked: “I am a father of three children, what do you think about same-sex marriage?”
Poroshenko’s answer at first was non-commital “I have nothing to do with it, it’s a private thing.” The man kept pressing to say he is very much against it, and worries for his three children, and begged to protect them.
“I am against it, are you?” he asked again.
“Yes, I am too, ” says Poroshenko.
Who’s on his team?
Although Poroshenko has been an amazing political chameleon, having worked in just about every government in the past 15 years, it’s very difficult to pin down his team. This is why predicting his future appointments is even more difficult – at least until you see who is working for him in the field.
Poroshenko’s campaign is mostly run by the team of Kyiv mayoral candidate Vitali Klitschko, the heavyweight boxing champion who withdrew from the presidential race earlier this year and endorsed Porohenko.
Poroshenko is making use of Klitschko’s right-hand man in politics, Vitali Kovalchuk, of the boxer’s Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform party. Also campaigning on his behalf is Yuriy Lutsenko, the former interior minister and political prisoner. There are a few former admirers of his arch-rival, ex-Prime Minister and ex-political prisoner Yulia Tymoshenko who have switched sides, indicating that her Batkivshchyna Party may face significant decay after the election, and the process has already started.
One of the most notable characters from Tymoshenko’s camp is Oleh Medvedev, a political consultant who worked with Tymoshenko for many years. Another one is Mykola Tomenko.
Endurance and efficiency
One aspect of Poroshenko’s personality that is frequently noted by his staff is his endurance and work efficiency.
“I thought Tymoshenko works a lot, but this guy has even more endurance,” says Medvedev, who switched camps from Tymoshenko to Poroshenko two months ago.
Andriy Zhygulin, Poroshenko’s spokesman who had once worked for Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk in his failed 2010 presidential election bid, says that Poroshenko can work really long hours without it taking a toll on him. He also says that Poroshenko is a grateful character, easily thanks his staff for good work, which somewhat contradicts his reputation of being disrespectful to others by failing to keep small promises (such as calling back).
Rejoice in diversity
Poroshenko’s campaign is just about the first one in Ukraine that has started to talk about diversity of people in Ukraine being a positive, rather than a negative, for the country. Language and cultural divides have been used multiple times in campaigns to promote fear and help elect candidates from either pro-Russian, or pro-European camp.
But Lutsenko, who travels with Poroshenko, talks about how “cool” it is that Ukrainians are so different. And I think it’s totally cool that he started talking about it.
Ministry for Crimea, deputy prime minister for European Integration
Poroshenko says that his Cabinet will be revamped very significantly, and there will be at least one new ministry introduced.
“Within the government after the election there should appear a ministry for Crimea. The minister should be a representative of Crimean Tatar people,” Poroshenko said at a press briefing in Dnipropetrovsk on May 17.
He also said he would make European integration top of his agenda, and will have a deputy prime minister running the process. Every ministry will also get a coordinator to speed up implementation of the association agreement.
E-government
One of Poroshenko’s frequent promises to people is that he will cut corruption and red tape in the country by making sure people will have very little to do with officials. He says he will ensure it by introducing electronic government, where many operations with documents and permissions will be handled in electronic form.
“We will fight corruption very quickly. We will create electronic government which will make things easier,” Poroshenko said at a May 17 rally in Kryvyi Rih of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.
At a different rally, he also said that any representatives of the government should be banned from appearing at business premises.
Old habits die hard
Poroshenko promises a new life in his campaign slogan, but some of his figures of speech and behaviors betray a man of old habits. One of them is an occasional hint of sexism.
“Despite the beautiful embankment, despite the smiles, despite women being dressed spring style and children running about, we still have a war going on in the country,” Poroshenko said at a press conference in Dnipropetrovsk. It’s that hint at short skirts that betrays him – and kissing the hand of the hostess of his rallies every time he comes on stage.
It seems that in politics, plenty of old methods are used also. For example, many people at the rallies appear to be paid for by the campaign. Three students in Dnipropetrovsk who came to the rally indicated they were asked to show up there, and waited for an OK to go home.
Visa-free travel to Europe as of Jan. 1, 2015
Poroshenko says one of his goals is to ensure that Ukrainians no longer need Schengen visas as Jan. 1, 2015. “I am sure the date 1 of January 2015 should be the target to aim for,” he said at one rally. He said he discussed the date with European Union Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy Stefan Fuele, who feels less optimistic about the date.
Fear that Tymoshenko will disrupt elections
Despite international observers in Dnipropetrovsk saying that the current campaign is calm and almost exemplary (except for the troubled Donbas), Poroshenko’s team is worried that it will be disrupted on election day because the Communists and then Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna would pull their representatives off polling stations, leaving them short of a quorom needed to legitimize the vote.
The parliament has tried to mitigate the risk by reducing the number of officials needed for a quorum from 12 to 9. UDAR is also recruiting volunteers who can step in if needed, said Vitaliy Kovalchuk, head of Poroshenko’s election campaign.
Facebook man
Poroshenko says he updates his Facebook page by himself, and sees no point in passing control over to anyone.
“Passing your account to the press service means that you don’t understand the essence of social networks,” Poroshenko said. He said candidates should either post themselves, or close accounts in social networks if they have no time.
Kyiv Post deputy chief editor Katya Gorchinskaya can be reached at [email protected]
