Baloha to chair Grytsenko presidential election campaign, report says

Viktor Baloha, widely referred to as “the boss of
Zakarpattia,” will chair the presidential campaign of former Defense Minister
Anatoliy Grytsenko, the pravda.com.ua news site reported on Sept. 11, citing
anonymous sources. Baloha has yet to confirm his involvement in the Grytsenko
campaign at all. Among the biggest entrepreneurs in the Zakarpattia region,
Baloha’s highest political post was serving as head of the Presidential
Administration under former President Viktor Yushchenko in 2006-2009. He also served
as emergency situations minister in the Cabinet of former President Viktor
Yanukovych.

Baloha is currently leading talks to unite small
pro-Western reform parties behind Grytsenko’s candidacy, including the European
Party, the Democratic Alliance, and the People’s Monitoring, the same report
said. Mykola Katerynchuk, the leader of the European Party, confirmed his party
will align itself with Grytsenko and his Civic Position for the 2019 elections.

Zenon Zawada: The
emergence of Baloha in the Grytsenko campaign reveals the paradox faced by
Ukraine’s pro-Western reformers. In order to compete to challenge the corrupt
oligarchs, they have to cooperate with them because of their access to
resources. Baloha is as typical a representative of the Ukrainian oligarchy as
anyone, being widely associated with corruption, even accused of transporting
contraband from occupied Donbas during the war. (No corruption claims against
Baloha have been proven in a court of law.)

To some extent then, Grytsenko’s alliance with Baloha
will dampen enthusiasm that the reforms-oriented electorate has enjoyed for his
candidacy, particularly among the creative, entrepreneurial youth. The alliance
with small parties won’t help much either. Though Grytsenko enjoys second-place
positioning in most election polls, we believe it’s quite possible that
President Poroshenko will overcome his current electoral slump to finish in
second and qualify for the second-round runoff in the presidential elections.
The first round is scheduled for March and the runoff would occur in April.