Andriy Sadovyi has won re-election as mayor of Lviv, according to an exit poll announced on Nov. 22.
Sadovyi took 62.8% of the vote in the Nov. 22 runoff against former Lviv Oblast Governor Oleh Synyutka, who ran on the ticket of the European Solidarity party of former President Petro Poroshenko. Synyutka received 37.2% of votes.
It will be Sadovyi’s fourth consecutive term as mayor, a position he has held since 2006. Sadovyi is seen as a successful city leader: He was even able to use his position as mayor to elevate himself to the national stage, with his local Samopomich party coming third in the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary elections.
However, winning re-election this year was not easy for him. Sadovyi’s long, but checkered tenure as Lviv mayor and the city’s strong support for Poroshenko gave Synyutka a real shot at the mayor’s office.
Read more: Lviv mayor Sadovyi runs for fourth term, faces strong opposition
In the Oct. 25 local elections, Poroshenko’s European Solidarity party won the city council election in Lviv. Meanwhile, Sadovyi received 40% of the vote in the first round of the mayoral election, while 31% of voters supported Synyutka.
It appeared that Synyutka would have an especially strong change of defeating the incumbent mayor in the second round. After coming in third place in the first round with over 9% of the vote, Ruslan Koshulynsky, a candidate with the nationalist Svoboda party, threw his support behind Synyutka — a combination that could have overpowered Sadovyi’s support in the runoff. But those predictions proved incorrect.
On Nov. 23, Synyutka congratulated Sadovyi on his victory.
“Congratulations to Andriy Sadovy on his victory in the mayoral race! I hope that the promises heard by Lviv residents were not only election strategies, but will become real change in the life of the Lviv community,” Synyutka Facebook wrote in a Facebook post.
So far, Ukraine’s local elections have been a triumph for regional elites.
In Ukraine’s two largest cities – Kyiv and Kharkiv – mayors Vitali Klitschko and Hennady Kernes scored over 50% of the vote in the first round of the election and held onto their seats. In Odesa, Mayor Hennady Trukhanov won re-election in the Nov. 15 runoff. Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov is also expected to secure re-election in the runoff on Nov. 22.
