Sergey Tigipko
Who is the leader of "Strong Ukraine" leading to the elections?
Serhiy Tihipko's Strong Ukraine Party was the first to publish a list of its candidates for parliament.
It included representatives of the conflicting oligarchs Dmitry Firtash and Igor Kolomoisky, as well as Viktor Pinchuk and Tariel Vasadze.
It's worth noting that even before the presidential campaign, Serhiy Tihipko's name was closely associated with Dmytro Firtash, whose supposed group he led in parliament until February 2014. However, before the election, the politician and the disgraced businessman parted ways, and reports emerged that Tihipko was receiving funding from Ihor Kolomoisky. However, as one of the members of the Strong Ukraine party list told INSIDER, their leader has now managed to reach an agreement with three oligarchs at once.
In the single-member constituencies, Tihipko's party is primarily running with regional business representatives and Party of Regions council members at all levels. For example, in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Viktor Shinkevich, a regional council member from the Party of Regions, is running; in Zhytomyr Oblast, Yuriy Samborsky, a city council member from the Party of Regions, is running; in Luhansk Oblast, Volodymyr Komisarenko, a city council member from the Party of Regions, is running; and in Odesa Oblast, Anton Kisse, an incumbent Party of Regions MP, is running. (read more about it in the article Anton Kisse: How a gym teacher became the Bulgarian baron of Bessarabia) and so on.
Most of the candidates' connections can be traced back to their previous employment. They are primarily businessmen and oligarch CEOs. There are, however, some in the security services, such as Leonid Pyata, the former head of Department T at the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
Candidates Sergei Dumchev and Anastasia Makarova were completely unidentifiable. Even their colleagues on the list, contacted by INSIDER, knew nothing about them. "I don't know who they are," says Oleg Shablatovich, number ten on the list.
According to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), the rating of "Strong Ukraine" currently hovers around 8%. This means that Tihipko will secure 25-30 seats in the Rada on his party lists.
INSIDER analyzed the passing part of the list.
1. The list's top vote-getter is Serhiy Tihipko. He suffered a decline in his ratings in 2010-2012, when, as First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Social Policy, he implemented pension reform. The reform increased the retirement age for women from 55 to 60 and for some categories of men from 60 to 65.
Tihipko is among the ten richest people in Ukraine, according to Forbes. He owns the TAS financial and industrial group, whose name is his daughter's full name. The group includes Dniprovagonmash, the Kremenchuk Steel Plant, and an insurance company.
2. Valeriy Khoroshkovskyi was always considered close to oligarch Dmytro Firtash and former head of the presidential administration under Viktor Yanukovych, Serhiy Lyovochkin. He headed Ukrainian customs in the government of Yulia Tymoshenko, and was head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and Minister of Finance under President Yanukovych.
In 2013, Khoroshkovsky sold his largest asset, Inter Media Group (which owns the Inter TV channel), to his partner, Dmytro Firtash, and fled the country. He was said to have fled due to a conflict with Yanukovych's "family," taking with him valuable documents collected during his tenure as head of the SBU.
3. Svetlana Fabrikant played in the KVN team "Odesa Gentlemen" in her youth. She was the general director of the "My Odessa" TV channel and headed the Odesa regional organization of "Strong Ukraine." In the 2012 parliamentary elections, she was included on the Party of Regions list under the Tihipko quota and became a member of parliament.
4. Andriy Gamov is the head of the Zaporizhzhia regional organization of "Strong Ukraine." From 2012 to 2014, he served as deputy to Zaporizhzhia Governor Oleksandr Peklushenko.
In Zaporizhzhia, he owns the manufacturing company "Tata," which he founded in 1998. The company manufactures and sells building materials.
5. Igor Mazepa – investment analyst, CEO of the investment company Concorde Capital, which he founded in 2004.
6. Yevhen Zhadan – head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional organization "Strong Ukraine." He is a member of the Dnipropetrovsk City Council and served as deputy to the regional governor, Oleksandr Vilkul.
From 2005 to 2009, he headed the Alef-Vinal company, which was part of the Alef corporation of a Dnipropetrovsk businessman. Vadim Ermolaeva.
7. Larisa Melnichuk spent 17 years in senior positions at Viktor Pinchuk's Interpipe and EastOne companies. In 2012, she was elected to parliament on the Party of Regions list.
8. Vadym Gurzhos, the two-time head of Ukravtodor in the Tymoshenko government, found himself in hot water in 2010. When Volodymyr Demishkan, a former road official under Yanukovych, took over the Road Service once again, Gurzhos was accused of embezzlement.
After leaving Ukravtodor, Gurzhos, according to himself, engaged in legal and consulting business with foreign partners.
9. Oleksandr Volkov first became a people's deputy in 2006, representing Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine bloc. In 2007 and 2012, he ran for parliament on the Party of Regions list.
10. Oleh Shablatovych has been a member of the Shevchenkivskyi district organization of "Strong Ukraine" in Kyiv since 2009. In 2012, he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada on the Party of Regions list. He and Fabrikant were the only deputies whom Tyhypko managed to elect on the Party of Regions list.
Since the 2000s, he has been involved in business. He is the owner and co-owner of numerous firms involved in legal services and trade, including: Transvest Group, Central Gastronom, Kriti Ltd, Scart, Valenta-Rent, and Ariana.
11. Tariel Vasadze is the owner of the UkrAvto corporation, which manufactures and sells automobiles. He is among the 100 richest people in Ukraine according to Forbes.
He has been in and out of every political camp in the country. In 2002, he became a member of parliament for the pro-presidential party "For a United Ukraine!" In 2006 and 2007, he was elected to parliament on the BYuT list. In 2010, he changed his mind again and entered parliament in the last parliamentary elections on the Party of Regions list.
The businessman's main asset is the Zaporizhzhia Automobile Plant. In August, he announced the suspension of production. Vasadze attributes his enterprise's problems to insufficient support for domestic manufacturers.
12. In 2010, when Valeriy Khoroshkovskyi became head of the SBU, Leonid Pyata became head of the agency's Department for the Protection of Statehood ("T"). Prior to this, Pyata was the head of the SBU department overseeing the fight against extremist organizations.
These details were reported in Focus magazine by journalist Sergei Vysotsky, who is currently running for parliament on the People's Front list of Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
13. Alexey Slyusarev is Viktor Pinchuk's manager. According to the National Securities and Stock Market Commission's information disclosure system, until 2013, he was a member of the supervisory board of Interpipe Nizhnedneprovsky Pipe Rolling Plant.
14. Mykola Dzhyga is a 65-year-old police colonel general. From 2010 to 2012, he served as governor of the Vinnytsia region. From 2000 to 2001, he served as first deputy to Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko.
In 2006, he was elected as a people's deputy on the Party of Regions list. In 2012, he was elected in a single-member constituency and joined the Party of Regions faction.
15. Oleksiy Logvinenko was elected to the Verkhovna Rada in 2006 and 2007 on the BYuT list. He was educated in Kharkiv, where he worked in the regional administration, at the Institute of Regional Policy, and as head of the supervisory board of Megabank.
16. Svyatoslav Piskun is a controversial prosecutor. He headed the Prosecutor General's Office three times—in 2002-2003, 2004-2005, and 2007. In 2004, Piskun won a ruling in the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv that his dismissal in 2003 was illegal.
In 2006 and 2007, he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada on the Party of Regions list. In 2012, he ran for parliament in a single-mandate constituency in the Zhytomyr region, but was unsuccessful.
17. Vasily Polyakov is a Kharkiv businessman, co-owner of the automobile dealership Avtoinveststroy (AIS) together with Dmitry Svyatosh, a people's deputy from the Party of Regions.
He was a member of parliament from the Socialist Party in 2006-2007. In 2013, the partners had a conflict with Kharkiv businessman Oleksandr Yaroslavsky, who demanded that AIS repay $100 million in debts to UkrSibBank.
18. Oleksiy Miroshnichenko is the deputy head of the Federation of Employers of Ukraine. The head of this organization is businessman Dmytro Firtash, who is currently under house arrest in Vienna.
19. Vadim Grib is the owner of the Tekt group of companies, which is involved in investments and fund management. As INSIDER reported, Tekt operates a small solar power plant, VinSolar.
The candidate's business partner is Vasily Khmelnitsky (read more about it in the article Vasyl Khmelnytsky: the planted oligarch)Grib was an advisor to Valeriy Khoroshkovsky when he headed the SBU.
20. Sergey Dumchev.
21. Hennadiy Fedoryak was elected as a people's deputy in 2012 on the Party of Regions list. Before becoming a deputy, he served as the chairman of the board of the gas distribution company Chernivtsigas, which is controlled by businessman Dmytro Firtash.
22. Vadim Pushkarev is a financier with 20 years of experience. Since 2006, he has served as Chairman of the Board of the Ukrainian VTB Bank, which is owned by the Russian government-owned Vneshtorgbank.
23. Andrey Mochenkov served as deputy to Mykhailo Dobkin, the governor of Kharkiv Oblast, from 2012 to 2014. He holds stakes in the Kharkiv companies Neon-A, Helium, and Proconsul.
Since 2001, he headed the Kharkiv regional organization of the Labor Ukraine party, the first party created by Sergei Tigipko.
24. Artem Ivanchenko is a top manager at the Kyivstar mobile operator. Back in 2002, he ran for the Verkhovna Rada as a member of the Green Party.
25. Serhiy Kuzyara is a former advisor to Eduard Stavytsky, Minister of Energy and Coal Industry in the government of Mykola Azarov.
Kuzyara held senior positions in coal companies. Forbes considered him a member of the team of Oleksandr Yanukovych, the fourth president's eldest son.
26. Andrey Zaika is a Kyiv developer and owner of the construction company HCM Group.
In 2008, Zaika, together with Kharkiv businessman Alexander Yaroslavsky, announced the construction of a multifunctional complex, Podol Business Park, on the sites of two former industrial enterprises: the Kyiv Auto Repair Plant and the Kyiv Furniture Factory.
In the spring of 2010, the Lithuanian company BT-Invest, the investment and construction company Stolitsa, and the HCM Group announced the merger of their development assets.
27. Anastasia Makarova.
28. Pavel Kravchenko is the CEO of the Zaporizhzhia Ferroalloy Plant, which is controlled by Igor Kolomoisky's Privat Group. He is also a member of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Council.
29. From 2005 to 2008, Evgeniy Kharkovshchenko headed the Ukrainian Media Resource company, which, according to the Telekritika website, acted in the interests of Valeriy Khoroshkovsky’s Inter Media Group.
30. Yuriy Kruk – People's Deputy of all convocations except the first. Over the years, he was a member of the United Ukraine, Labor Ukraine, and People's Democratic Party factions.
In the last elections in 2012, he was elected on the BYuT list, but after Viktor Yanukovych won the presidential election, he switched to the Party of Regions.
Volodymyr Makeenko, a member of parliament in every convocation of the Verkhovna Rada except the second, is listed as the thirty-first. He was a member of the Party of Regions faction during the last three convocations and chaired the parliamentary ethics committee. Makeenko is confident he will continue to serve in the next convocation.
He became widely known when, at the end of 2013, he was appointed head of the Kyiv State City Administration by Viktor Yanukovych and, in this position, on February 19, he spoke out against the shutdown of the metro, thereby sabotaging the president's decisions.
Sergiy Golovnyov, INSIDER
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