The number of districts "merged" by the ruling party is more than 10
Petro Poroshenko's bloc "merged" a number of single-member constituencies "under the odious former Party of Regions and officials from Yanukovych's team."
LB.ua editor-in-chief Sonya Koshkina writes about this in her article "Petrov's Stables."
"There are two possible ways to drain the vote: either the BPP doesn't nominate anyone in this district at all, or it nominates a frankly weak candidate," the article states.
"Specific examples: the 171st district (Vitaliy Khomutynnik), the 150th (Konstantin Zhevago), the 24th, which was handed over to Pinchuk's man, Yakov Bezbakh, the 65th (Volodymyr Lytvyn), the 102nd (Oles Dovhy), the 128th (Sergey Levochkin), the 169th (Alexander Feldman), the 192nd (Alexander Gerega), the 193rd (Mykola Melnyk, Inna Bogoslovskaya's husband), the 70th (Mikhail Lanyo), and the 217th (Vadim Stolar). Also in question are Anton Yatsenko's 200th district and the 95th, which, judging by everything, was simply sold off," writes Sonya Koshkina.
According to her, there are about 11 such districts in total.
In some cases, such as Levochkin's or Dovgy's districts, the editor-in-chief emphasizes, the so-called technical candidates were selected by the former officials themselves.
"128 — Volodymyr Opryshko. A leak. Initially, it was planned that Serhiy Lyovochkin would run in the district as an independent. Bankova couldn't openly support him, but it was perfectly possible to nominate a technical candidate from the BPP. Opryshko is Lyovochkin's 100% supporter. There's very little information about him in open sources. However, at the last minute, the odious head of Yanukovych's presidential administration chose a place on the Opposition Bloc list over the district. Opryshko remained in 128th place," the article states.
A similar scheme was used in the district of Oles Dovgyi, whom the BPP could not officially support due to his notoriety.
"Bankova proposed a compromise. Vadim Bondar, Oles Dovgyi's man, became the BPP candidate for District 102. Dovgyi personally selected his "backup" candidate. He selected him carefully, ensuring there was no way to establish their connection. The main requirement for the candidate was that he be unassuming. Today, that goal has been 100% achieved," writes Sonya Koshkina.
"In some districts, there were no worthy candidates. Here, the BPP has blank spots simply because the ruling party couldn't find anyone to nominate (the 63rd, 67th, 79th, etc.)," the article also states.
"Interestingly, most of the leaks occurred under the UDAR quota. You should ask Vitali Klitschko why. And while the Poroshenkoites and Klitschkoites split the party list 70-30, the latter clearly got even less in the single-member constituency," Koshkina concludes.
Some candidates, like the one in the 94th district, she said, are surprising.
"94 – Gleb Lirnik. What good can a glamorous nightclub owner born in 1987 do in the Verkhovna Rada? The BPP apparently knows the answer, which is why they nominated Gleb Lirnik, the owner of D*Lux, for the controversial 94th constituency. His father, Andriy Lirnik, previously collaborated with Partskhaladze in politics (Partskhaladze himself is number 93 on the pro-government list). He also worked in business with those known under Yanukovych as the 'pharma mafia.' Why is this constituency so controversial? Viktor Romanyuk won it in 2012, but his victory was stolen. Romanyuk himself was forced to emigrate," the editor-in-chief noted.
Left Coast
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