Left, independents elected in Kharkiv (04/19/98)

Left, independents elected in Kharkiv

by Yarema A. Bachynsky
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KHARKIV - Fulfilling the predictions of pollsters and taxi drivers, a large portion of this eastern Ukrainian city's residents cast their votes for candidates to the Verkhovna Rada from the left of the political spectrum and for independents of a left-centrist streak running for local office.

Formal pre-election polls and "voice of the people" interviews indicated support of more than 30 percent for the Communists and the Socialist/Peasant election bloc in Kharkiv Oblast, with the Communist share higher in the oblast center and greater support for the Socialist/Peasant bloc in the villages.

Neither leftist group was disappointed on election day, and a pictograph by the Kyiv Post released on April 3 indicated that these two parties, together with the radical leftist Progressive Socialist Party received more than 32 percent of the ballots in voting by party lists throughout the oblast.

In single-mandate voting, left-wing candidates fared less well, with two of nine Kharkiv City districts going to Communists, and the rest going to independents. Incumbent National Deputy Volodymyr Alekseiev, known for his principled refusal to speak Ukrainian at Parliament sessions, was re-elected, while former Parliament Vice-Chairman Viktor Musiaka (whose Forward Ukraine election bloc did not clear the 4 percent barrier for party list elections) was voted out of office. His replacement, Vasyl Salyhin, an independent businessman whose pre-election advertising included pensioners, allegedly picked "off the street," and vowing that "Salyhin is our kind of men," won with a mere 16 percent of the vote on a highly crowded ballot.

Former Defense Minister Valerii Shmarov was elected to Parliament with less than a third of the vote, beating Oles Babii of the Ukrainian National Assembly and several others in a race where, according to Mr. Babii, Mr. Shmarov's ties to the National Democratic Party took the upper hand over the other candidates' lack of support by the "apparat." In Kharkiv's central Kyivskiy Raion, Inna Bohoslovska edged out Oleksander Berezovskyi, a criminal defense attorney whose campaign advertising included the candidate posing with a bottle of "Berezivska" mineral water.

Kharkiv Mayor Mykhailo Pylypchuk, appointed as Yevhen Kushnariov's successor following the latter's move to Kyiv where he heads the Presidential Administration, was elected with a plurality of ballots, edging out Valentyn Dulub, a municipal land officials, Leonid Harmash, a Communist deputy to the Verkhovna Rada, and a number of other candidates, left, right and center.

A consultative referendum asking whether Kharkiv City should become a free economic zone was supported by a majority of voters, according to Metro-Press, a local newspaper.