The recent mayoral election in Kharkiv showed yet again that Ukraine remains a very complex society, divided by values and ideological preferences. Kharkiv is the largest city in Ukraine after Kyiv. Home to 1.5 million people, it is larger than the total population of Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Kharkiv is three times bigger than French Lyon and is roughly the population of Barcelona.
From Kharkiv, you can get to the Russian border faster than in one period of a soccer game. It was there, after fleeing from Kyiv in February 2013, that ex-President Viktor Yanukovych resurfaced after the chaos following the shootings on Maidan Nezalezhnosti. It was from Kharkiv that former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov fled to Russia. According to Russian authorities, this city was to become the center of another self-proclaimed republic as a result of President Vladimir Putin’s aggressive actions to occupy eastern Ukraine. But Kharkiv persevered, it was able to suppress the separatist uprising in its infancy: The Russian flag hung over the regional administration for a mere 45 minutes.
From 2010 to December 2020, Kharkiv was headed by Hennady Kernes. He was a member of Yanukovych’s Party of Regions but in the crucial days, after the ex-president escaped from Kyiv, he refused to turn Kharkiv into an outpost of the former regime.
However, there’s no clear explanation for this. Former chief of the Donetsk People’s Republic’s militia, Igor Girkin (Strelkov) once said that Kernes flew to Moscow in 2014 to receive instructions from Putin’s adviser Vladislav Surkov on the establishment of the Kharkiv People’s Republic, but eventually decided to side with Kyiv authorities. Another version was voiced by oligarch Pavlo Fuchs in a TV interview: He insisted that together with another oligarch, Igor Kolomoisky, they persuaded Kernes not to play with fire and undermine Ukrainian statehood.
In April 2014, Kernes became the victim of an apparent assassination attempt by an unknown sniper while out jogging in Kharkiv. He survived the gunshot but was confined to a wheelchair thereafter. The crime was never solved. On Dec. 17, 2020, he died in Berlin from COVID-19 complications following months of treatment. But it seems that even when Kernes was still alive, even the immediate entourage did not believe in his recovery and fought to fight for his legacy.
Anyone who could most authentically present himself as Kernes’ successor in public would automatically win the mayoral election. After all, despite his controversial reputation, corruption scandals, and love for brutal language, Kernes had strong support among Kharkiv residents. Many of them are still captive to the Russian-created myth of a “strong hand” they find in Putin and would like to find in the heads of their local municipalities as well. The paternalism of Ukrainian society, multiplied by despair in political parties, created the basis for such a phenomenon as Kernes. The farewell ceremony for him, which lasted five hours, was attended by 100,000 people. And, paradoxically, this is slightly less than the number of people who voted in the mayoral election in late October 2021 for Ihor Terekhov. Now he will lead a city of 1.5 million after gaining only 146,000 votes.
Another phenomenon of Kharkiv elections is the lack of a democratic alternative. It’s been the case for decades. Terekhov secured his victory by being elected city council secretary in 2020 when Kernes was elected for his third term. Kernes spent the entire election campaign in the ward of the Charité Clinic in Berlin, and his ability to act independently was never confirmed by anyone. After Kernes’ death, Terekhov assumed the role of acting mayor.
Terekhov’s only competitor in this election was Mykhailo Dobkin, a former member of parliament from Yanukovych’s Party of Regions. Over the years, he managed to rule both the region and the city but was remembered only by outrageous statements on TV channels, full of pro-Soviet and anti-Western narratives.
The competition in this election was limited to these two candidates, Terekhov and Dobkin as they had been trying to prove their status as “Kernes’ successor.” In favor of the latter was a viral video from 15 years ago. When Dobkin tried to film a campaign video for his run for city mayor in 2007, Kernes was standing behind the camera, bullying Dobkin. Kernes scoffed at his mistakes by saying: ”You have a boring face, no one will give you money.” This mocking remark has become a catchphrase in Ukrainian politics for many years. Therefore, thanks to this video with millions of views, Dobkin had the opportunity to appeal to the masses as Kernes’ closest ally.
During the election, his candidacy was backed by the pro-Russian Opposition Platform – For Life, led by Kremlin-friendly politician Viktor Medvedchuk who is currently under house arrest. And to stop the desire of other politicians to run in Kharkiv, the party even issued a special explanation that all self-nominated Dobkin competitors would be shamefully expelled. Dobkin was also supported in every possible way by the TV channels of another oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov, where he appeared almost daily with comments on any topic. Dobkin’s task was to expose Terekhov as an impostor. “We will find out how you (Terekhov) came to power and who is exploiting the memory of my friend,” Dobkin’s ally and lawmaker from Opposition Platform Nestor Shufrych said on air of the main political talk show “Right to Power.”
But the elections turned out a fiasco for Dobkin. He was backed by less than 30 percent of voters. And although Terekhov has been accused of using administrative resources and falsifications, his victory over Dobkin is too significant for these abuses to affect the result.
A much more serious problem for Terekhov was not Dobkin, but the investigation on how he landed the position of Kharkiv City Council secretary in 2020. This happened in the days when Kernes’ ability to make independent decisions was highly questionable. A proposal from Kernes to elect Terekhov as the second person in the city was submitted to a meeting of the Kharkiv City Council on Dec. 9, 2020. The document was not signed by Kernes physically, but with the help of an e-signature at 10:20 a.m.
This signature was issued to Kernes on September, 17 at 3:52 p.m., although he left Kharkiv a day before in a special capsule on a charter flight to Berlin due to Covid-19 complications. So at the time, the new e-signature was issued (which must be provided on a secure memory stick to the owner personally) Kernes was not physically in Ukraine. Kernes’ digital signature was held by one of his subordinates in the mayor’s office, who, on the instructions of unknown individuals, filed a petition for Terekhov allegedly on behalf of Kernes, which first made him secretary of the Kharkiv city council, then acting mayor, and later paved the way for the election victory.
This skeleton in the closet makes Terekhov loyal to the Kyiv authorities. At one time, when Kernes died, several people tried to gain their share of influence in the city after the election. These included Pavlo Fuchs, the Ukrainian-Russian oligarch who was recently sanctioned by the Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. This was also the former Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, whose deputy Terekhov worked in Kharkiv many years ago. This was also a big developer in Kharkiv, Oleksandr Yaroslavsky.
Terekhov, as a project created by the myth about Kernes’ heir, turns into a joint-stock company, where everyone tries to get their share. Those will be converted into positions, influence, land plots, and city tenders. There is a risk Kharkiv will be governed as usual, according to the rules of Ukrainian corruption. But Terekhov has a chance for a do-over. He now has legitimate power in the election, not a temporary position due to manipulation of Kernes’ electronic signature. This means that he is not obliged to anyone but his voters. And he can at least try to govern differently than was established in Kharkiv during Kernes’ time.
Sergii Leshchenko, the former deputy chief editor of Ukrainska Pravda, was a member of Ukraine’s parliament, serving from October 2014 as part of ex-President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc. He lost his re-election bid in the July 21, 2019, parliamentary race. He started writing columns for the Kyiv Post in October 2019.
