Kharkiv and Odesa mayors launch new political party

A new Russian-oriented party, Trust Actions, held its
founding congress on June 2 in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. The
party’s founders were elected as its co-chairs: Kharkiv Mayor Gennadiy Kernes
and Gennadiy Trukhanov, the mayor of Ukraine’s third-largest city Odesa. The
congress was attended by the mayors and top officials of mid-sized cities such
as Kropyvnytskiy, Nikopol and Uzhgorod. In his speech, Kernes boasted of
leading the effort to defeat the city’s pro-Russian separatists, who launched a
rebellion in spring 2014 by taking over the Kharkiv regional administration
building. “Our city didn’t surrender to the many days of tumult and many thousands
of hired protestors from the east and west,” he said, also striking an
anti-EuroMaidan tone.

At the same time, Kernes has spent recent weeks
stirring pro-Soviet sentiments in the city by proposing to return the name of a
major boulevard to Soviet Red Army General Georgy Zhukov. In response, local
EuroMaidan activists and nationalists toppled the city’s statue of Zhukov on
the morning of the party congress. Kernes vowed to lead the city council in
restoring the monument and renaming the boulevard, referring to the anti-Soviet
activists as “the scum of society.”

Zenon Zawada: Given that
this new party will not qualify for parliament, we believe it was created for
two purposes: to work towards the re-election of Kernes and Trukhanov in next
year’s mayoral elections, and to create for themselves (and other mayors)
political capital when dealing with the bigger parties that will gain factions
in the regional and local councils. It’s realistic that Kernes and Trukhanov
will be re-elected. Kernes is especially popular in Kharkiv for improving
public maintenance, and the Zhukov controversy – which will be engineered to
drag into the next year – should work to provoke pensioners to cast their votes
for him.

At least four parties have emerged to realistically
compete for the Russophile southeastern electorate, which also include the
pro-EU/pro-NATO People’s Servant party led by the president, the pro-Russian
Opposition Platform For Life led by former Energy Minister Yuriy Boyko and
Putin confidante Viktor Medvedchuk, and the pro-Russian Opposition Bloc for
Peace and Development, backed by billionaire business partners Rinat Akhmetov
and Vadim Novinsky. It’s these parties that Kernes and Trukhanov will have to
deal with in their city councils. Reports have also surfaced that the
pro-Russian Opposition Platform and Opposition Bloc are in merger talks.