As the Kyiv-based Embassy of God church celebrates its 12th anniversary this year, it also is celebrating the election of one of its most famous "ambassadors" - banker and evangelical Christian Leonid Chernovetsky - to the Kyiv mayor's office.
Chernovetsky, an ex-policeman and the honorary head of Pravex Bank, was one of three top candidates to chair the Kyiv municipality. Very few expected him to win; opinion polls showed continued strong support for incumbent Kyiv mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko, while Chernovetsky and former world-champion boxer Vitaliy Klitschko had much lower poll standings.
At first the news of Chernovetsky's victory was considered a joke. Later, when it became clear that the banker would be taking the top job in the local Kyiv council, experts and journalists found themselves in a quandary as far as how to explain Chernovetsky's unexpected electoral triumph.
Bread and Spectacles!
Whatever, bread comes first. The lion's share of the Chernovetsky electorate is represented by low-income pensioners and socially vulnerable people. The newly elected mayor, already famous for his charitable activities, started getting ready for the elections well in advance. For some time, he had been giving substantial financial aid to free canteens for poor or displaced people. But his core voters were found in Kyiv's "khrushchevkas" (the inexpensive prefabricated concrete slab apartment houses built in the early 60s during the Khrushchev era). Chernovetsky found a ready audience among pensioners, who enjoyed receiving the badly-needed extra food and were grateful for the attention Chernovetsky paid them: He appeared to actually listen to their problems.
Chernovetsky's campaign workers were active, making lists of needy people in Kyiv residential buildings and delivering food packages (1 kilogram each of buckwheat and sugar, a bottle of sunflower oil, canned fish, a chocolate bar and sometimes coffee) together with campaign materials including calendars showing Chernovetsky's smiling face and his newspaper, "Pravo Imeyu"("I have a right"). Recipients also had the opportunity to share their pension and housing complaints and other global problems with the campaign workers who delivered Chernovetsky's largesse.
"I was reading about him [Chernovetsky] in his newspaper - it says he is a decent man," said one retired man. "Take it and read - you can get everything about him from this newspaper." Indeed, Chernovetsky became a popular subject for discussions among elderly people, often displacing talk of the latest TV soap opera or discussion of oligarchs' fortunes.
One issue of Pravo Imeyu included cover illustrations showing Chernovetsky's rivals pummeling each other in a boxing ring while Chernovetsky stood outside the ropes with a group of pensioners. "Let the strongest win!" Chernovetsky is shown saying in the cartoon. "So you go and win!" the pensioners reply to him. Another picture depicts a defeated and bruised Omelchenko, with ex-president Leonid Kuchma offering his respect and condolences. There was no indication of how Chernovetsky packed more punch than Omelchenko and Klitschko.
First Steps
The new mayor is likely to keep building support from his core groups to ensure their votes in the next election. In each interview, he stresses the introduction of strong social programs to support vulnerable groups. His methods bear a strong resemblance to those of Oleksandr Lukashenko, the Belarus strongman also known as a champion of pensioners, who comprise the largest and most active demographic in that country's electorate.
If Chernovetsky has a great relationship with his core constituency, his relationship with the media may be off to a rockier start. On April 17, soon after taking office, the new mayor fired Valeriy Tkachuk, director of Kyiv's municipal television station. The official reason given was "because facts were revealed that work duties had been inappropriately conducted, causing significant damage." Neither Chernovetsky nor Tkachuk's colleagues could explain what was meant by "inappropriate conduct" or what sort of damage had been done.
Chernovetsky has ordered an internal investigation into Tkachuk's operation of the channel. The station's deputy director, Mykola Dyachenko, has called the investigation absurd, claiming that the director's dismissal was groundless. The new mayor doesn't need a reason to fire Tkachuk, according to Tamila Radchenko, head of the legal department of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine. She told the Ukrainian Observer that according to the Law on Local Self-Governance, the mayor is authorized to appoint and dismiss directors of institutions and organizations in Kyiv city government at will. The Kyiv TV channel is one such institution.
Despite that, Dyachenko said that Chernovetsky could have made the dismissal less messy. "It didn't have to be like that: He could have called a meeting of the directors of all Kyiv departments and asked them all to resign, then work in an acting capacity pending an open competition for replacements," Dyachenko said.
Employees at Kyiv city television contend that the firing was related to Chernovetsky's unhappiness with the way the station covered the mayoral race. That coverage gave extensive coverage to the incumbent, Omelchenko.
"Without a doubt, the Kyiv channel was far from being balanced - Omelchenko was shown too much," said media analyst Oleksandr Chekmyshev. "But there was another aspect - everyone knows how Chernovetsky treats journalists."
Indeed, soon after the elections Kateryna Popovska, a journalist working for the Kyiv channel, claimed that Chernovetsky had threatened her and a colleague with dismissal. The conversation was not recorded, and Chernovetsky denies that it occurred. "Never will Kyiv's channel be licking me clean and pouring dirt on my rivals," said Chernovetsky, "I will always listen to them."
A Coalition Rises
It is hard to tell whether Chernovetsky will be happy in his new position. At first, Omelchenko tried to contest the result of the mayoral election in court, alleging that Chernovetsky bribed voters, and that the first meeting of the Kyiv city council that Chernovetsky convened was illegal. The court denied both claims,
While Omelchenko may be gone, the new mayor may face resistance from the Kyiv city council. On April 15, deputies representing Yulia Tymoshenko's Bloc, the bloc of Vitaliy Klitschko-Pora, Reforms & Order Party and GAK (Public Activists of Kyiv) agreed to create a coalition called Fair Kyiv. The coalition condemned the mayoral election, saying that "it was conducted by applying new technologies that manipulated people's consciousness, especially those of vulnerable citizens." The new coalition is demanding that new mayoral election be held.
In response, Chernovetsky told the council that they could cooperate and manage the city together. "For me, as mayor, all the factions of the council are equal; there are no major and no minor ones," said Chernovetsky. "The only criteria used will be their effectiveness."
Chernovetsky has made clear his willingness to cooperate with representatives of the Party of Regions that were elected to Kyiv council, leading to a near certainty that deputies loyal to Tymoshenko and their supporters will form strong opposition to the mayor, making it more difficult for him to govern.
The Tymoshenko bloc has 41 deputies on the council, Klitschko's bloc has 14 seats and GAK has 7 representatives, bringing the coalition to 62 deputies, just over half the 120-member council. How successful Chernovetsky will be at putting his programs into place will largely ride on his ability to work with council members allied to oppose him.
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