Klitschko re-elected as European Solidarity wins Kyiv City Council

Official results of the Oct. 25 voting for the Kyiv
City Council were announced on Nov. 6 by the Kyiv city territorial elections
commission. Seven parties broke the 5% threshold to qualify. They included the
European Solidarity party led by former President Poroshenko (20.5%), the
Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reforms (UDAR) led by Kyiv Mayor Vitali
Klitschko (19.98%), the Unity party led by former Kyiv Mayor Oleksandr
Omelchenko (8.7%), the Opposition Platform For Life party led by former Energy
Minister Yuriy Boyko (7.8%), The People’s Servant party led by President
Zelensky (7.53%), the Fatherland party led by former PM Yulia Tymoshenko
(7.49%), and the Voice party led by IT entrepreneur Kira Rudyk (6.0%).

 

Based on these results, the European Solidarity party
gains 32 out of 120 city council seats, UDAR has 31 seats, Unity has 13 seats,
the Opposition Platform and People’s Servant has 12 seats, the Fatherland party
has 11 seats and the Voice party has nine seats.

 

Vitali Klitschko won re-election as Kyiv mayor with
50.5% of the vote, compared to 9.5% for the previous city administrator,
Oleksandr Popov of the pro-Putin Opposition Platform For Life. The result was
reported on Nov. 6 by the Kyiv city territorial election commission.

 

Zenon Zawada: We pay
particular attention to the Kyiv City Council results because they reflect the
opinions and trends of Ukraine’s most informed and politically active
population. Based on these results, we draw the following conclusions:

 

(1) The People’s Servant party led by the president
has lost much of its support among Ukraine’s pro-Western electorate in the
year-and-a-half since Zelensky’s election. Its results for the Kyiv City
Council can be easily characterized as disastrous. The president’s attempt to
balance pursue both Western integration, and détente with Russia, has caused
the party to lose votes to distinctly pro-Western (European Solidarity) and
pro-Russian forces (Opposition Platform).

 

(2) The European Solidarity party has taken much of
the votes from the neoliberal Voice party, which was unable to recover its lost
momentum in the local elections. At the same time, the European Solidarity
party doesn’t have a monopoly of the pro-Western electorate, much of which is waiting
for a better alternative to emerge for the next elections.

 

(3) Local parties have succeeded in earning the trust
of the Ukrainian public, as demonstrated by Klitschko’s UDAR and Omelchenko’s
Unity. This indicates that Ukrainians are more concerned with effectively
resolving tangible, day-to-day issues of quality of life (utilities, public
maintenance, roads, medicine, avoiding lockdowns), rather than grandiose
geopolitical issues.

 

(4) Kyiv’s pro-Putin electorate remains miniscule
(7.8%), despite the second-place finish of former Kyiv City Administration head
Oleksandr Popov in the mayoral elections (with a 9.5% result).

 

(5) Once the dominant political force in Kyiv and
the surrounding regions just ten years ago, the Fatherland party is on the way
to retirement, along with former PM Yulia Tymoshenko.