Pro-Putin candidate Pavlov wins Kryviy Rih mayoral runoff vote

The pro-Putin, establishment candidate won the mayoral
election runoff held on Dec. 6 in Kryviy Rih, Ukraine’s eighth-largest city.
Kostiantyn Pavlov of the Opposition Platform For Life party earned 57.0% of the
vote, compared to 40.5% for Dmytro Shevchyk of the pro-presidential People’s
Servant party. Pavlov became the establishment candidate just two-and-a-half
weeks ago after the 71-year-old Yuriy Vilkul, a career politician, announced
his withdrawal from the race owing to health reasons (after finishing first in
the first round). Although Vilkul launched his own party, he endorsed the
candidacy of Pavlov, a 47-year-old career politician with some experience in
the city’s industry. Kryviy Rih, whose population is about 650,000, is home to
ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih and five mining-enrichment plants. Eight of Ukraine’s
11 iron extraction and processing enterprises, including iron ore mines of
Metinvest, are located in the region.

Zenon Zawada: These
elections are the latest evidence that Zelensky’s politics of trying to appease
both the West and pro-Russian forces at the same time is not working. As the
various crises drag on (war in Donbas, COVID-19, economic stagnation,
corruption), Ukrainians increasingly want concrete solutions and Zelensky is
not providing them. In the case of Kryviy Rih, it didn’t even help The People’s
Servant candidate that the city is the president’s hometown.

The one positive we see with Zelensky’s politics and
The People’s Servant party is that they offer the residents of southeastern
Ukraine a moderate alternative to the overtly pro-Putin Opposition Platform.
But unfortunately, the party and its candidates are going to lose most
elections, as the Oct. 25 vote showed. The People’s Servant was unable to elect
a mayor in any significant Ukrainian city.