The Central Election Commission canceled the registration of two controversial candidates for the July 21 parliamentary election.
Exiled ex-official Andriy Klyuyev and scandalous political blogger Anatoliy Shariy, who are both wanted in Ukraine, got registered as candidates in absentia on July 2, causing public outrage.
Several hundred people protested in Kyiv against their registration and their possible return to Ukraine. Both men haven’t lived in Ukraine for several years, thus failing to meet the criteria for candidates, who have to reside in Ukraine for five years prior to the election.
Based on that criteria, the Central Election Commission initially turned down the applications of Klyueyv and Shariy. But the Supreme Court overruled that decision and obliged the Central Election Commission to review their applications. The commission said they had no choice but to register them – and did so on July 2.
But a day later, after people protesting and top officials calling on the commission to reconsider their decision, the commission once again turned down the candidacies of Klyuyev and Shariy.
Among the officials calling to cancel the registration was Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and Chairman of Parliament Andriy Parubiy.
Parubiy said that he appealed to Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s office, Security Service, and the State Border Guard Service asking them to provide the commission with information proving that Shariy and Klyuyev have been absent from Ukraine.
Eventually, on July 3 the Central Election Commission received documents from General Prosecutor’s Office, Security Service, National Police and Interior Ministry of Ukraine, that proved Shariy and Klyuyev hadn’t been living in Ukraine for years.
As a result, in a late meeting on July 3 the Commission canceled their registration as candidates in the upcoming parliamentary election.
Both Klyuyev and Shariy are wanted in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s ex-President Viktor Yanukovych meets with Andriy Klyuyev, then-head of Yanukovych’s presidential administration, to discuss an agreement with the opposition leaders in Kyiv on Feb. 21, 2014. (UNIAN)
Klyuyev ran Yanukovych’s administration during the EuroMaidan Revolution that ousted the pro-Russia president in 2014. Before that, he served as the deputy prime minister and the head of the Defense and Security Council of Ukraine under Yanukovych.
He left the country together with Yanukovych in February 2014 and has been residing in Russia since then.
Political blogger Anatoliy Shariy, who fled Ukraine in 2012 escaping prosecution and has been living in Europe since then.
Shariy left Ukraine in 2012. A year earlier, he opened fire in one of Kyiv’s McDonald’s during a fight with another guest at the fast food restaurant. He has been living in Europe since 2012 and hosting a popular video blog criticizing the Ukrainian authorities.
Klyuyev wanted to run for parliament in a single-member district in Donetsk Oblast as a representative of the Liberal Party of Ukraine, and Shariy wanted to run on the ballot with his own political party, called Shariy’s Party.
