Ukraine held parliamentary by-elections on March 28 after two seats in parliament became vacant in early November. The races took place in the opposite corners of the country: In eastern Donetsk Oblast and western Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast.
A controversial local mayor Andriy Aksyonov, charged with forgery and embezzlement, was elected to parliament in a single-member constituency in Donetsk Oblast.
Aksyonov, representing a low-profile Order party, was a clear favorite of the election and received a commanding 65% of the vote.
Aksyonov, the mayor of the small town of Dobropilya, is charged with forging documents to visit occupied Crimea, receiving pay while out of the office, and helping organize an illegal separatist referendum in Donbas during the early stage of Russia’s invasion in 2014.
The vote count still goes on in the constituency in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast. With 40% of the votes counted, famous strength athlete Vasyl Virastyuk is leading with 35%. He was nominated by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party.
If Virastyuk wins, the governing Servant of the People party will control 246 seats in the parliament, while pro-Kremlin forces in parliament will have one more lawmaker in Aksyonov.
Donbas separatist
The Donetsk Oblast by-election took place in the city of Pokrovsk, home to 63,000 people, and its surroundings.
In October, lawmaker Ruslan Trebushkin became the mayor of Pokrovsk and resigned from parliament, launching the race for the vacant spot.
Aksyonov had little competition and easily won the race.
His competitors were Valentyn Rybin, nominated by the Shariy Party, a small new party led by pro-Kremlin fugitive blogger Anatoly Shariy, known for spreading Russian propaganda and bigotry. Rybin received 13%.
The pro-Western European Solidarity party led by ex-President Petro Poroshenko nominated Yulia Kuzmenko, who is a suspect in the highly controversial case of the murder of Belarus-born journalist Pavel Sheremet. Kuzmenko received nearly 7% of the vote.
Sheremet was murdered in Kyiv in 2016 after an explosive device was planted under his car. Kuzmenko was one of the several suspects arrested in December 2019. However, over a year later, Kuzmenko wasn’t charged, while journalists, activists and human rights groups have alleged that the case is forged.
Unlike Kuzmenko, Aksyonov’s charges are straightforward. He is known for helping Russia occupy Donbas.
In 2014, when Russian-sponsored separatists were conducting a shell referendum to back their claims for a Russian invasion, Aksyonov was actively assisting them.
Back then, Aksyonov was the head of Novodonetskoe, a village near Dobropilya. Videos of Aksyonov supporting the referendum have circulated online.
However, Aksyonov was charged in 2018 for another criminal offense – he visited occupied Crimea and forged documents to cover his tracks. He was placed on overnight house arrest in 2019. The case is ongoing and he wasn’t yet convicted.
Now Aksyonov will serve as a lawmaker from the low-profile Order party which doesn’t have any lawmakers in parliament and is linked to the pro-Russian Opposition Bloc party associated with oligarch Rinat Akhmetov.
Western strongman
The race in Nadvirna, a city of 22,000 people in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, was more competitive.
The parliament seat became vacant in early November after Servant of the People lawmaker Zynovyi Andryiovych won the mayoral race in the city of Nadvirna and resigned.
As of the early afternoon of March 29, the Servant of the People candidate Virastyuk was leading the vote count with 35% of the vote. He was supported by Zelensky, who used his office to promote his party’s candidate.
During the heavy third wave of COVID-19 in Ukraine, Zelensky publicly included Virastyuk, a celebrity athlete, in a meeting discussing the situation in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, which was hit especially hard by the pandemic.
Virastyuk’s main competitors were Oleksandr Shevchenko, representing the For the Future (Za Maibutne) party, which has 24 lawmakers in parliament and is linked to oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, and former lawmaker Ruslan Koshulynsky representing the nationalist Svoboda party.
As the vote count continues, Koshulynsky and Shevchenko are competing for second place in the race, getting 28% and 27%, respectively.
Unlike his competitors, Virastyuk is a newbie in politics. Virastyuk is best known for his win in the 2004 World’s Strongest Man competition. After finishing his strongman career, Virastyuk often appeared in Ukrainian movies and TV shows.
According to Virastyuk, he will join the parliament’s sports committee and advocate creation of a rehabilitation center for war veterans.
