The 2020 Kyiv mayoral election wasn’t decided on Oct. 25, according to exit polls by several polling groups. The election’s frontrunner, incumbent Mayor Vitali Klitschko, wasn’t able to get over 50% of the vote.
The ex-boxing champion running for his third term as mayor was supported by some 45.9% of Kyivans, according to an exit poll by Ukraina 24 and Savik Shuster Studio.
Now Klitschko and the runner-up will compete in the runoff election, tentatively set for Nov. 15.
Several contenders are in competition for a spot in the runoff against Klitschko, according to the exit poll.
They are: Oleksandr Popov (9.6%), ex-head of Kyiv City Administration, who is running as a representative of the Opposition Platform, a pro-Russian party holding 244 seats in parliament; Iryna Vereshchuk (8.5%), a lawmaker and a nominee of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party that holds 46 seats in parliament; Oleksiy Kucherenko (7.8%), a candidate with Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party that holds 24 seats in parliament; and Serhiy Prytula (7.2%), a popular TV personality representing Voice, a liberal opposition party with 19 seats in parliament.
Another candidate, Andriy Palchevsky, a Russian-Ukrainian businessman and TV commentator running with his own party, Palchevsky’s Victory, got only 4.8%, according to the exit poll.
The exit poll’s margin error is 1.9%, meaning that Klitschko’s contender remains undecided.
Another exit poll by the Rating Polling Group gives Klitschko 47.8%, Popov 8.6%, Prytula 8.3%, Vereshchuk 8%, Kucherenko 6.3%.
Official results from the Oct. 25 election in Kyiv will be published no earlier than on the morning of Oct. 28, according to representatives of the local election committee. The officials said the count will take so long due to the new, complicated ballot format.
But regardless of whom he faces in the runoff, Klitschko is expected to win. The ex-boxer’s personal rating remains high even after a mayoral term full of ups-and-downs.
Klitschko has been the mayor of Kyiv since 2014. He was elected twice, first at the by-elections in 2014 following the EuroMaidan Revolution, then in the regular local elections in 2015.
He became mayor of Kyiv as a result of his infamous deal with ex-President Petro Poroshenko and exiled oligarch Dmytro Firtash, where the three allegedly agreed that Klitschko would run for mayor and Poroshenko for the presidency.
Klitschko’s six years in office have been mired in allegations of corrupt deals with developers, which Klitschko has always denied. Still, his personal rating stands strong.
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If Klitschko wins the third term, which is likely, he will be mayor of Kyiv until 2025.
Klitschko will have a strong standing in the city: His party, UDAR, is expected to come first in the elections to the Kyiv city council. The exit poll gives it 19.7% of the vote.
In the second place is Poroshenko’s European Solidarity party, with 17.8% of the vote.
Zelensky’s Servant of the People party is third with 10.2%.
Klitschko will likely have to enter a coalition with either Poroshenko’s European Solidarity or Zelensky’s Servant of the People in the city council.
Zelensky holds a sway over Klitschko: It’s in his power to fire him as the head of the Kyiv City Administration, a governor-like position that Klitschko holds simultaneously with the mayor’s job.
Zelensky almost did it in 2019 amid a public stand-off between Klitschko and the President’s Office. Losing the position would cost Klitschko a significant part of his powers even as he stays an elected mayor.
On Oct. 24, on the eve of the mayor election, Klitschko announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19. As a result, he was unable to vote in the election.
