Local elections in Kyiv are different from anywhere else in Ukraine: They’re not exactly local.
Politicians and parties treat elections for the capital’s mayor and city council as a springboard to nationwide recognition. Candidates often don’t mind losing the race, because it’s the spotlight they are really after.
Meanwhile, the winners are more or less clear in advance.
After the Oct. 25 local elections, former boxing heavyweight champion and currently Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko is expected to keep his seat, while his UDAR party is poised to beat national parties in the race for the city council — much like in other major cities, where the incumbent mayors are likely to stay in office.
The undecided trophy of the election is second place in the run for seats in the city council, where ex-President Petro Poroshenko’s European Solidarity party is looking to beat President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party.
In the parliamentary election one year ago, Zelensky’s party won all single-member constituencies in Kyiv, delivering a major blow to the former president. But now it looks like Poroshenko can win the capital’s love back.
“Kyiv elections mirror those of all Ukraine, as they often repeat the vote on the national level,” says Anatoliy Oktysiuk, a political expert at local think tank Democracy House. “For (Poroshenko), it is important to gain a foothold in Kyiv because, for him, it’s a rematch of the 2019 parliamentary election.”
Klitschko stands unchallenged
Despite Klitschko being mired in corruption scandals, the Kyiv mayoral race has long been considered a done deal in his favor — even before the campaign began.
According to the September polls by Rating Group, 45.5% of voters support Klitschko, while his party leads the city council polls with 23%.
Klitschko’s closest rivals poll slightly above 10%. If the mayor can get more than 50% of the vote, he will claim victory. Otherwise, Klitschko and the runner-up will go into a run-off on Nov. 15.
Klitschko’s popularity is a phenomenon. It hasn’t been shaken by corruption scandals and accusations of mismanagement that have followed him since he became the mayor in 2014.
His term in office was marred by suspicions of connections with developers, especially Maksym Mykytas and Vadym Stolar.
Under Klitschko’s watch, companies affiliated with Mykytas and Stolar won billions of hryvnia worth of construction tenders from the city of Kyiv, including for the Kyiv subway and Shulyavskiy Bridge.
Klitschko ignored concerns of violations by these companies. When a company led by Mykytas was developing a site too close to the Dnipro River in 2015, the city council saw no violations.
Klitschko has always denied he favored any developers or was influenced by them. But in 2017, he was spotted taking a private jet with Mykytas and Stolar. The mayor said the businessmen spontaneously offered him a lift, and he paid his share.
Today, Stolar is a lawmaker with the pro-Russian Opposition Platform party. Mykytas is under arrest, charged with embezzlement. His UkrBud Development company went bankrupt and left 25 unfinished residential blocks and thousands of buyers waiting for their apartments, which the state will now pay to finish.
As for Klitschko, affiliations with developers didn’t hurt his rating.
“People see Klitschko as a good guy. Yes, bad guys are surrounding him, but he isn’t bad,” says political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko, describing the phenomenon of Klitschko’s unyielding support.
The mayor’s high ratings prompted Poroshenko to seek to renew an old alliance with Klitschko. The ex-president’s European Solidarity party, which holds 27 seats in parliament, announced it won’t nominate a candidate in the mayoral election, and instead will endorse Klitschko.
But Klitschko carefully distanced himself from Poroshenko, clarifying that he is running with his own party UDAR (“Punch” in Ukrainian, a reference to Klitschko’s boxing career) and isn’t seeking an alliance.
“(European Solidarity) is trying to revive dialogue with Klitschko, and by not competing with him for the mayorship, they are trying to show Klitschko that they are still his allies,” says Fesenko. “The fight for whom Klitschko will take into a coalition in the city council is already on.”
Battle for fame
While Klitschko appears to be invincible, major political forces are still actively campaigning in Kyiv to prop up the parties’ ratings and recognition.
The ruling Servant of the People party, which holds 246 seats in parliament, nominated lawmaker Iryna Vereshchuk to run against Klitschko and formed a team of local activists to run for the council, spearheaded by urban activist Yevhenia Kuleba, the wife of Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
The party is supported by 13.5% of voters, according to Rating Group. However, Vereshchuk has a chance at making it into the mayor’s race run-off with 7% of the vote.
European Solidarity is skipping the mayor’s race but is in for the fight for the city council, with former first lady Maryna Poroshenko leading the party list. Like Zelensky’s party, they poll at 13.5%.
Both Petro and Maryna Poroshenko campaign actively through street ads and on television. According to Fesenko, European Solidarity’s best chance is to closely tie itself to the ex-president’s personal brand. In the second round of the presidential election in 2019, Poroshenko won 25% of the vote.
A Poroshenko on the ballot may give the party a few extra points in Kyiv, the analyst argues.
“It’s a well-known political strategy, a famous person must be a locomotive that pulls the party list,” says Fesenko. “If there’s no strong figure for the mayoral race, voters might pass on the party list.”
Smaller parties actively campaign in Kyiv, too.
Voice, which holds 19 seats in parliament, nominated TV star Serhiy Prytula to run against Klitschko.
Prytula has spent over 15 years hosting popular TV shows and has been promoting Voice since the party’s creation in 2019. In Kyiv, Prytula could end up in a run-off with Klitschko, with 10% support from Kyiv residents.
The party also put forward former Customs Service Chief Maksym Nefyodov to lead the party into the city council. Nefyodov, who only recently joined Voice, says he’s ready to help build the party up.
“According to our polls, we have 8.2%. That’s a good result,” Nefyodov says. “There’s no magic formula to get 50% from the start.”
Ex-Security Service Chief Ihor Smeshko is also running for mayor of Kyiv. In 2019, Smeshko made a surprise return to public life after 15 years, and won 6% of the vote in the presidential election.
The pro-Russian camp has diversified its political assets. Three pro-Russian parties are running for the Kyiv City Council: The Opposition Platform – For Life party, the Shariy Party of popular blogger Anatoly Shariy and the Victory (Peremoha) party of Russian-Ukrainian businessman Andriy Palchevsky. Palchevsky is also running for mayor of Kyiv.
This way, pro-Russian forces cater to everyone, according to political expert Oktysiuk.
“Shariy is for the young voters, Palchevsky is more of a pro-Russian working-class candidate, Opposition Platform rides the older electoral wave,” Oktysiuk said.
Zelensky vs. Poroshenko, again
Observers see the ongoing local campaign as a rehearsal for the upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for 2024.
As was the case during the 2019 presidential election, Ukraine’s two most popular politicians are Zelensky and his rival and predecessor Poroshenko.
For Poroshenko and his European Solidarity party, 2020 is a comeback year. Poroshenko monopolized the support of the pro-Western voters and his party is expected to win in multiple regions on Oct. 25. Winning Kyiv is vital for Poroshenko: It will strengthen his position as the main rival to Zelensky’s regime.
Poroshenko’s party will use the victory in Kyiv over Zelensky in their future campaigns, says Oktysiuk.
Furthermore, Klitschko won’t have free reign in the city even if his party takes first place. Since the city council is responsible for allocating funds from the city budget, the mayor will be forced to choose who to side with within the council – Poroshenko or Zelensky.
For Klitschko, there isn’t much of a choice. Forming a coalition with Poroshenko equals entering a conflict with the president. For Klitschko, it brings a very specific risk. Zelensky can fire him as the head of the Kyiv City Administration – a powerful position that Klitschko holds separately from being an elected mayor. Losing it would cut his powers substantially.
“For Klitschko, in order not to be in conflict with the central government, a coalition with Servant of the People party is a must,” says Fesenko.
For Servant of the People, a defeat in Kyiv can harm the perception that the party is supported by the people.
“If Zelensky fails during the upcoming elections and his electoral support crumbles, it’s obvious that, for Klitschko, it will be beneficial to confront the president,” Oktysiuk says.
For smaller parties, a successful run in Kyiv can boost their ratings on the national level. The Voice party, for example, saw a steady decline in support after its leader Sviatoslav Vakarchuk quit politics, so the party is looking to regain momentum using Prytula’s TV popularity.
“For the Voice party, Kyiv is an important battleground. The successful run of Prytula and the Voice party in Kyiv will show voters that the party is still alive,” says Fesenko.
The same applies to such candidates as Smeshko and Palchevsky, who are looking to capitalize on their recognition in the future. However, both are failing to do so and a weak show in Kyiv may subsequently end their political careers, says Fesenko.
It’s still about Kyiv
Even though most politicians are looking further than just the local elections, most candidates are focusing their campaigns on criticizing Klitschko and promising a better alternative for the city.
The city problems that are most actively used in campaigning are traffic jams, which rank among the worst in the world; stalled infrastructure projects such as the Podilsky Bridge and multiple illegal construction sites across the city.
The capital also suffers from the lack of a proper beltway, which forces up to 50,000 freight trucks to pass through the city roads and bridges daily, escalating traffic jams and damaging roads.
Air pollution and the lack of recycling plants are also on the list of Kyiv’s problems.
“In the last five years, with a colossal budget increase, we don’t see any systematic improvement,” says Nefyodov. The decentralization reform allowed cities to keep more tax money, and the Kyiv budget has increased from Hr 20 billion ($900 million) in 2015 to nearly Hr 60 billion ($2.2 billion) in 2020.
“Our main allegation is (Klitschko’s) ineffective management,” says Nefyodov.
Vereshchuk, from Servant of the People, promises to build a waste recycling plant in Kyiv and to increase the amount and the quality of public transport in the city. Zelensky’s office has also given a formal start to the construction of a beltway around Kyiv, set to be completed by 2025.
Klitschko’s main promises to his electorate include finishing the construction of three new metro stations and the Podilsky Bridge. He has also promises to commission more parks and recreation zones. Under his watch, the city got some new parks, such as the popular Natalka Park in the Obolon district, or a reconstructed Volodymyrska Hirka park in central Kyiv.
Klitschko’s pitch seems to be working.
“Some well-thought-out urban projects and the overall warm attitude towards Klitschko are the main reasons for his popularity,” says Fesenko.
“There’s an interesting phenomenon in Ukraine that the support of the people for their local governments is much higher than for their central government,” he continues. “If mayors are at least partly successful, it gives them a strong chance for re-election.”
