Local elections will begin in Ukraine in a month. Ukrainian politicians are actively preparing for them, pursuing completely different goals: some want to get closer to the trough, others want to stay close. In March 2015, the Economic Development parliamentary group disbanded. Opposition media actively spread rumors that the group's dissolution was due to the unwillingness of some MPs to follow the instructions of its leader, Vitaliy Khomutynnik, who is considered one of his key allies. Igor Kolomoisky in the Verkhovna Rada. However, the rumors were not confirmed. Former members of the Economic Development group announced the creation of a new alliance—the Vidrodzhennya Party. Its leaders were the same MP Khomutynnik, as well as members of parliament. Valery Pisarenko and Victor Bondar.
Read more about Vitaly Khomutynnik in the article Vitaliy Khomutynnik: How Ukraine's Richest MP Made His Fortune
Experts say the emergence of "Vozrozhdenie" in the Rada indicates that Ihor Kolomoisky intends to create his own political force to counterbalance everyone—the Opposition Bloc, the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, and even the Radical Party. According to sources, the party intends to remain in opposition but has no intention of coordinating its actions with the Opposition Bloc. This suggests that the upcoming elections will likely see a conflict of interest between Ihor Kolomoisky and the Opposition Bloc's main investors, Rinat Akhmetov and Serhiy Lyovochkin.
Sergey Levochkin
After Viktor Yanukovych fled the country, his "gray cardinal," Serhiy Lyovochkin, remained in Ukraine. Although he retreated into the shadows literally in the first days of the Revolution of Dignity, immediately after the revolutionary events, he began preparing the ground for the former Party of Regions' return to power. This is how the Opposition Bloc party emerged, and as part of it, he once again became a member of parliament. Lyovochkin soon announced that the Opposition Bloc would be reformatted into a new party, comprising members who had not participated in the elections. According to him, the main goal of this force was to win local elections in the southeastern regions in October 2015, as well as to form powerful factions in other regions of Ukraine.
In November 2014, Anatoly Shariy, a "pocket" journalist for certain forces, posted on his blog a preliminary draft of the future party's program, which was prepared by Levochkin's former deputy, Irina Akimova.
According to the draft, the party was to be called "Vidrodzhennya," a nod to the old name of the Party of Regions—"Revival of Regions." The fact that Lyovochkin has such a project, and Ihor Kolomoisky is developing a party with a similar name, raises the question of whether the oligarchs are working for the same "common good."
Most political analysts are vying with each other to claim that Ihor Kolomoisky is planning to "play with voters": he is creating parties exclusively for the southeast, where the electorate dislikes him and is ready to vote for the Opposition Bloc, even in his hometown of Dnipropetrovsk. According to Kostya Bondarenko, the Vidrodzhennia party intends to take votes in the southeast from the Opposition Bloc. Meanwhile, political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko claims that Kolomoisky is waging a personal war, intending to "deal with the Kryvyi Rih clan" controlled by Rinat Akhmetov. Fesenko also believes that Kolomoisky will lose the political battle and could lose a great deal as a result of his "enemies" aligning themselves with each other. At the moment, it looks as if the Vidrodzhennia and Opposition Bloc parties will compete in the local elections, but everyone is forgetting the fact that if power is in the hands of these parties, it will not be in the hands of the ruling majority of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc.
The Vidrodzhennia and Opposition Bloc parties effectively bring together all the former Party of Regions members, as well as their former supporters, and nothing will stop them from one day reuniting. The main leitmotif of their unification will, of course, be the "revival of Donbas," as well as the idea that the ruling elite, led by Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk, is to blame for all the troubles.
The fact that former Party of Regions members are actively joining Vidrodzhennia is also evidenced by the fact that Gennady Kernes, who, to the surprise of many politicians, refused to cooperate with the Opposition Bloc, will run for mayor of Kharkiv from this party.
Gennady Kernes
In the Odessa mayoral elections, the Vidrodzhennya party nominated a former ally of Serhiy Tihipko. Svetlana Fabrikant, who was effectively his right-hand man. At one time, Tihipko was one of the closest associates of Yanukovych's "family."
Svetlana Fabrikant
In early September, former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov attended the Revival Party congress in Kyiv. Media outlets are tipped him as the party's mayoral candidate in the upcoming Kyiv elections.
Yuri Yekhanurov
In the Verkhovna Rada, the Vidrodzhennya group, led by Vitaliy Khomutynnik, currently comprises 22 members of parliament. The group includes former Party of Regions members, as well as members of parliament who voted for the "dictatorial laws" on January 16, including Igor Shkirya, Anton Kisse (read more about it in the article Anton Kisse: How a gym teacher became the Bulgarian baron of Bessarabia), Vladimir, Alexander Bilovol, Oleg Kulinich and other notorious regionalists.
Voting for "dictatorial laws"
On the surface, it appears as if the former Party of Regions members and allies of the Yanukovych regime have distanced themselves from their past, but as experience shows, once you've "eaten from the trough," you'll return to it again and again. For the MPs who joined the party, this is their last chance to somehow remain in power, as the majoritarian system under which they were elected is soon planned to be abolished. This will mean they will only be able to enter parliament through party lists, and with such a tarnished reputation, it's unlikely anyone will want to recruit them.
Ukraine's future depends on whether the former Party of Regions can "reinvent themselves" in a party with the grandiose name of Vidrodzhennya, or some other alliance. Although, judging by recent events in Ukraine, Ukrainians will have a long, long wait for improvement.
Dmitry Samofalov, for SKELET-info
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