Pro-Zelensky sport celebrity leads in scandalous election to Rada

The election commission of the 87th district (in the
western Ivano-Frankivsk region) announced on April 5 Vasyl Virastyuk as the
winner of the March 28 elections for a vacant place in the Verkhovna Rada.
Virastyuk, a strongman celebrity who was nominated by pro-president party the
Servant of People, won with 31.25% votes, or 1.56pp more than second-place
Oleksandr Shevchenko, a business partner of tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky and director
of a popular ski resort. Third place, with 28.86% votes went to Ruslan Koshulynsky
from the nationalist Svoboda party (also supported by Poroshenko’s party), who
served as vice-speaker of the Rada in 2012-2014. Both losing top candidates
declared they would question the election results.

The calculation of votes at the 87th district was
followed by numerous scandals and mutual accusations of top candidates. The top
candidates accused each other of buying votes. One of the techniques applied
against Shevchenko was the nomination of two namesake candidates who drew 1.02%
of votes. Another was the cancellation of election results in some locations
where Shevchenko allegedly collected a lot of votes.

The Central Election Commission, which approves the
final decision on the election results, stated on April 5 that it will work on
the election documentation and will wait for court rulings before adopting a
final conclusion on the election’s results.

In other election of an MP held on March 28, in the
eastern Donetsk region, local mayor Andriy Aksyonov won with an overwhelming
majority of over 65% of the votes. The candidate from Zelensky’s party gathered
just 3% of the votes. According to journalist Denys Kazansky, Aksyonov was
involved in organizing a pseudo-referendum aimed at the separation of Donetsk
region from Ukraine in 2014.

Alexander Paraschiy: It is
ridiculous to observe how a politician with values seemingly close to the local
electorate is overshadowed by a rich guy, who in turn is overshadowed by a man
with “administrative resources.” As the experience of previous additional
elections shows, administrative resources usually win, so we expect Virastyuk
will become a member of the parliament. This adds little to Zelensky’s image in
the eyes of western partners, though we believe they will remain silent taking
into account that Kolomoisky’s ally’s victory might look like a worse outcome
for them.

It is also interesting to observe that Zelensky
offered no viable candidate in the pro-Russian Donetsk region while in these
by-elections he actively participated in the pro-EU western region. This might
give evidence to a shift of his priorities from satisfying all the people’s
interests (both pro-Western and pro-Eastern, as he declared during presidential
elections in 2019) to those with a pro-Western orientation.