As Ukrainians commemorated the Holy Virgin religious holiday earlier this month, some of the deputies from the capital’s city council plotted to give an unwarranted present to Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky.
The religious holiday signifies the Holy Virgin’s blessing and protection of believers. The deputies “blessing” on the mayor was supposed to be in the form of a cash bonus in honor of his seniority. This issue was included on the Oct. 13 meeting agenda. But the actual sum of the mayor’s bonus was kept secret until the session started.
However, instead of a “wonderful surprise,” Chernovetsky and his loyal secretary, Oles Dovhy, got headaches. My small bloc — only 15 members of the 120 deputies on the city council – stopped the city council from convening on Oct. 13. A day later, on Oct. 14, Kyiyans stopped Chernovetsky and his allies from entering the mayor’s office and holding another city council meeting.
There was scuffling in the halls, which got lots of public attention. What was behind all the pushing and shoving? Simply put, we were able to stop illegal meetings from taking place that would have led to more of the infamous “land grabs,” or sales of city land cheaply to mayor-friendly insiders.
Inaction by a Chernovetsky-controlled city council is far better (and cheaper) for Kyivans than action. Unfortunately for Kyivans, the city council majority has a strong desire to acquire or distribute the city’s lucrative land holdings.
We had given early warning to the mayor that we would not allow him to hold two illegal sessions on Oct. 13-14. The main purpose of the meetings was to dole out more land plots – illegally to favored insiders – while the Chernovetsky-controlled city council still had the power to do so.
Those were the last two days of a law that let the city council to sell and transfer city-owned real estate with a majority vote, an unfair and scandalous process.
Those land distribution powers are now gone, taken away by an amendment to the nation’s land code that came into effect on Oct. 15. Any available land plots have to be sold through competitive tenders on a national government level. The new law will hopefully introduce fairness and transparency to the redistribution of wealth.
Even though the mayor controls the city council, he does not have unlimited rights. He has no right to remain blind to the colossal financial, social and communal problems in Kyiv. He has no right to hand out the untouchable “green zone,” those land plots protected for environmental and historic reasons. He has no right to erect monster buildings on Andriyivsky Uzviv, the historic tourist hill, or to take away land from city hospitals.
Simply put, Chernovetsky has no right to take property away from Kyivans. But that’s what the mayor was trying to do.
The Oct. 13 agenda would have put 60 land issues up for a vote, while the next day’s agenda would hand out another 120 land plots. Some of the land slated to change hands would have been on Zhukov Island, a nature preserve under Ukrainian law. Another transaction would have sold land on Andryivivsky Uzviz.
When those in power realized that the opposition on the city council would not cooperate with their shady schemes, they called for help from the big brothers at the Verkhovna Rada. These included Regions Party members Elbrus Tadeev, a former wrestler, and Oleksandr Volkov, a former basketball player. Both parliamentarians specialize in forcibly blocking and unblocking the Rada rostrum.
But these people failed to realize that, for every force, there is a counter-force. They should have known that the world’s heavyweight boxing champion would not allow brawls in the session hall. Standing in front of the rostrum, I said what I would like to repeat to those who wanted to take their pieces of the Kyiv cake: Gentlemen, keep a safe distance!
Those in power are simply unresponsive to Kyivans. No wonder 90 percent of city residents don’t trust the mayor and want him out. Within the isolated walls of the city administration, Chernovetsky’s loyalists pretend they’re oblivious to their own unpopularity and try to put a brave face on their sorry business.
The mayor takes his case to the public only as a last resort. He is desperately trying to survive as a politician. And so, he signs memorandums with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who criticizes him in public, to reduce the cost of utilities. At the same time, he cooks up opaque schemes with friendly factions on the council to carve up the city’s wealth.
The interests of the city residents are represented nowhere. That’s why a whole crowd of Kyivans came to the city council to defend their own rights. They blocked entrances to the city council building, preventing anyone from entry. None of the Chernovetsky cronies had the guts to cross paths with a righteously infuriated crowd. Aggrieved people who are in the right will not keep a safe distance. Nor should they.
On these two days at least, Kyivans managed to uphold their rights and retain ownership of the city’s precious land.
Vitali Klichko is the World Boxing Council heavyweight boxing champion and leader of a 15-seat faction on the 120-member Kyiv City Council.
