Boyko selected as presidential candidate from Russian-oriented forces

Yuriy Boyko has been unanimously selected as the
presidential candidate representing the Opposition Platform For Life party, its
web site reported on Nov. 17. The party will represent the interests of the
residents of the southeastern regions, as well as Ukraine’s Russian-speaking
residents, said in the statement Viktor Medvedchuk, the party’s political
council chair. “In formulating our strategic tasks, we have gone from words to
actions and have proved that where the issue is rescuing the people from the utility
rate genocide, the debt cabal and the politics of predatory nationalism, there
is no room for ambitions and political egoism,” he said in the statement.

Zenon Zawada: The
announcement of Boyko becoming the party’s presidential candidate comes as no
surprise, given he has consistently held the highest poll ratings among
Russian-oriented politicians, finishing among the top five candidates. We
expect Boyko will put up a strong fight but it’s unlikely he will qualify for
the second-round run-off in April. Although the Russian-oriented electorate is
wide, Boyko lacks the charisma or public trust to motivate new people to vote.

What this announcement also confirms is that the Boyko
group has won in the battle to lead the party that is recognized as the
successor to the Opposition Bloc, which was the successor to the Party of
Regions led by former President Viktor Yanukovych. If political council of the
Opposition Bloc party truly held its meeting this week (as had been alleged by
Vadim Novinsky), it failed to resolve the conflict between the Boyko group (led
by oligarch Dmytro Firtash) and the Oleksandr Vilkul group (led by oligarch
Rinat Akhmetov).

This also means that Akhmetov will have to launch a
separate Russian-oriented force if he wants to compete in the 2019 elections.
This project will likely be led by Vilkul, a trusted confidante who served as
his business executive. If this new party is launched, it will either draw new
voters (depending on its image and platform), or cannibalize the
Russian-oriented vote from the Opposition Platform and the Putinist Nashi
party.