Artists go to the deputies: that the Zelensky and Vakarchuk parties offer voters

Vladimir Zelensky’s Servant of the People party held a pre-election congress and showed the first hundred candidates who will be nominated for elections to the Verkhovna Rada. The president's party is serious about winning more than half the seats in parliament. At the same time, the leader of Okean Elzy, Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, presented candidates who will run for elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine from his Holos party.

Photo collage: ForumDaily

To hold its congress, Zelensky Headquarters chose the greenest place in Kiev, the botanical garden, set up a tent with green flooring in the middle of it, and placed tubs with greenery everywhere.

"There's a lot of symbolism"

Congress guests and journalists were taken to the tent in golf carts, and the guests were treated to shawarma, which has also become a kind of symbol of Zelensky’s presidency. A few weeks ago, congratulating Kiev residents on City Day, he wrote that he loved Kyiv for “the smell of linden trees and shawarma near the metro,” which gave rise to a discussion on social networks about the role of shawarma in the appearance of the capital.

While Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky was ascending the stage, delegates to the congress began to stand up, greeting the first person of the state. “No, no, sit down, these are different times!” the president stopped them from the stage.

“This is definitely my speech, not Pyotr Alekseevich’s?” - he asked, showing the audience a folder with the text of the speech. This is how he jokingly responded to the recent scandal after a meeting with EU head Donald Tusk.

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“We have gathered here today in the botanical garden, and this is very symbolic. I believe that thanks to the people who are here with us today, Ukraine will flourish. Well, we’ll plant them, there’s a lot of symbolism,” Zelensky noted at the beginning of his speech.

"Smart and decent people"

Finally, the most exciting moment of the congress came: the announcement of the list of candidates from the party.

Based on the impressive ratings of “Servant of the People”, the first hundred of the list is considered passing, and that’s exactly how many names were named from the stage.

The first number on the list was the leader of Servant of the People Dmitry Razumkov - Zelensky, as president, by law cannot lead a political party.

According to Zelensky, the qualifying part of the list includes three categories of candidates: experts - members of the president’s team who went through a victorious campaign with him; representatives of regional cells of “Servant of the People”; whom he called smart and decent, and people who passed an online selection with their projects, organized on the party website.

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The names - even from the first twenty on the list - are not familiar to most of those present: the hall explodes with applause only a few times.

For example, when Alexander Tkachenko appears on stage, whom the presenter calls “one of the best media managers in the world.” He heads the famous Ukrainian TV channel “1+1”.

The guests were greeted by the congress and Jean Belenyuk, world champion in Greco-Roman wrestling. 28-year-old native of Kiev has a high chance of becoming the first black member of the Verkhovna Rada.

Jean Belenu with Vladimir Zelensky. Photo: Facebook /Zhan Beleniuk / Jean Belenyuk

Once again the hall explodes with applause when the name of Yuri Koryavchenkov, one of the most famous actors of the 95th Quarter, Zelensky’s comic studio, is called from the stage.

He is running for parliament from the constituency in Krivoy Rog, the hometown of many “kvartalovites” and Zelensky himself.

Koryavchenkov turned out to be one of ten Servant of the People nominees in majoritarian districts, whose names were announced at the congress. The rest of the single-mandate candidates in the party were not shown, although, according to Dmitry Razumkov, candidates from Zelensky’s party will be represented in 199 electoral districts of the country.

Photo: Facebook/Studio “Kvartal 95”

The rest were not named: Zelensky explained this by saying that the verification of candidates was still ongoing. This work is expected to be completed by Monday. Next, according to Zelensky, journalists and public activists will have to re-check the candidates. If they discover something dubious, Servant of the People promises to exclude candidates who discredit the honor of the party from their lists.

50 and more

The final result of Servant of the People in the parliamentary elections is now difficult to predict. Zelensky's party now has the highest ratings of all the participants in the campaign: as of early June, 48% of Ukrainian voters would support it, but whether it will be able to maintain this level of support is not yet known.

The head of the Servant of the People's election headquarters, Alexander Kornienko, told the BBC that his party would consider the minimum acceptable result of the elections to have 230 of its deputies in the Rada and, accordingly, the creation of a one-party majority in it.

According to him, Zelensky’s party plans to take about 50% of the votes for its list. Good prospects are opening up for Servants of the People in single-mandate constituencies: several BBC interlocutors familiar with the results of sociological surveys say that simply belonging to Zelensky’s party in many constituencies can provide even a completely unknown candidate for deputy with a starting rating of the order 15%. And with such a start, victory for many election participants should simply be a matter of technique.

The leader of Okean Elzy, Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, presented the candidates who will run in the elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine from his “Voice” party.

Фото: Depositphotos

“Sorry, I’m more used to standing like this.” With these words, the leader of the “Voice” party, Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, removed the stand and took the microphone in his hands.

Holding rather crumpled sheets in his hands, he suddenly began to read out the preamble of the program of his party sings like verses:

“Man is the note that we lack in Ukraine... The Holos party is going into politics to return people to the center of the state... Ukraine must be turned into an “Eastern European tiger.”

Musician, founder of the famous rock band “Okean Elzy” Svyatoslav Vakarchuk created his party “Voice” a few weeks ago. Her immediate goal is to get into the Verkhovna Rada, whose elections will take place on July 21.

On Saturday evening, Golos held a pre-election convention on Starokievskaya Hill in the center of the capital of Ukraine.

Recognizable politician

Two years ago, Svyatoslav Vakarchuk was called one of the possible winners in the presidential elections in Ukraine.

According to the Socis company, in the fall of 2017, almost 10% of Ukrainian voters were ready to vote for him. At that time, this was the second result among all potential election participants.

Vakarchuk wrote program columns for a long time with reflections on the fate of Ukraine and with criticism of its power, and just as long did not give an unequivocal answer to the question of whether he was going to the presidency.

Vakarchuk did not go to the election of the President of Ukraine 2019 of the year, but immediately after them said that he would participate in the elections of the Verkhovna Rada and lead his own party to the elections.

According to the study of the Kiev International Institute of Sociology from April 2019, only 5,4% of respondents in response to the question “Do you know the politician, and if so, how do you feel about him?” They said they hadn't heard of him.

25,4% of respondents were positive about it. Only this figure was higher for only two people, Vladimir Zelensky and the former head of the SBU, Igor Smeshko.

Vakarchuk is one of the most popular Ukrainian musicians, a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences and a graduate of the “Program for Training New Ukrainian Leaders” at the American Stanford University.

“Professionals and just decent people”

If Vakarchuk himself is a recognizable figure in Ukraine, then those people with whom he is on the same list for the elections can hardly be called headliners of Ukrainian politics.

At the “Voices” congress, the names of 20 people who will be first on the list of candidates from the party were read out. The party can receive approximately this many mandates if it gains 7-8% in the elections.

There are no former or current deputies among them. This was the subject of a separate pride of members of the Vakarchuk team, who declared that they wanted to bring radically new faces to the Rada and create a new policy.

Vakarchuk himself became the only candidate of the Vakarchuk party with experience of deputy work: he was a people's deputy for a little more than a year, did not succeed much and soon left the Rada.

Speaking at the congress, Vakarchuk indirectly responded to those who criticized him for such a short political career: “We are going into politics seriously and for a long time, and we will be there for as long as necessary to implement serious changes there.”

The top of the electoral list included former official of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade Yulia Klimenko, who is also the head of the pre-election headquarters of the musician.

The third number was the businesswoman Kira Rudik, the head of the company for the development of smart solutions for the house Ring Ukraine. Last year, Ring Ukraine, as part of Ring, bought Amazon for 1 billion dollars.

The leaders of Vakarchuk’s list also included the deputy editor-in-chief of the publication Zerkalo Nedeli, the famous journalist Sergei Rakhmanin, and activist Solomiya Bobrovskaya, Mikheil Saakashvili’s deputy when he was Odessa governor.

And the famous showman Sergei Pritula, who recently announced that he was joining the “Voice” team, ended up only in 30th place. This means that he will get into the Rada only if the party has a very good result in the elections.

Photo: Facebook /Sergiy Prytula - official page

Vakarchuk characterized his team as patriots, professionals and just decent people.

The list is quite efficient and attractive, said BBC co-founder of the Ukrainian Institute of the Future Yuriy Romanenko.

However, he noted that most of the list's participants are people known in narrow professional circles. He called the most original and technologically correct decision the inclusion of Pritula and the fact that he was placed in 30th place, not the most passable place.

“This mobilizes supporters of the headliner. So, in general, against the backdrop of Vakarchuk’s lackluster messages, the appearance of Pritula will add dynamics, drive and great human capital to the campaign of the showman, which he earned through professional activities and in the field of volunteerism,” the political scientist believes.

After the presentation of his team, Vakarchuk called on journalists and activists to once again review the list of Golos candidates and not remain silent if it turns out that it includes people with dubious reputations.

The leader of Golos said that if this happens, the party will immediately convene for an extraordinary congress and expel them from its ranks.

«Less than 15% will be a defeat"

According to May data from the sociological group “Rating”, “Golos” so far only overcomes the five percent electoral threshold with a small margin.

“At least 51%,” Vakarchuk himself answered with a smile when asked by journalists about expectations.

“Right now we have five (percent of the vote). I think by the end of the campaign it will be 8-10. But this is my personal feeling, I don’t have any numbers,” anti-corruption fighter and number five on the “Voice” list Alexandra Ustinova told the BBC.

“A result of less than 15% will be considered a defeat,” one of the key staff of “The Voice”, who wished to remain anonymous, told the BBC.

According to him, the “core” of the electorate of Vakarchuk and his team are young residents of the cities of central and western Ukraine. And it is precisely these voters that Golos’ efforts will primarily focus on.

According to June polls, only Zelensky’s Servant of the People party has a chance of getting more than 15%. Polls give second place to the pro-Russian “Opposition Platform - For Life,” with 10-11% of respondents saying they are ready to vote for it.

“Our key goal is to win the votes of those voters who will see that Zelensky does not fulfill his many election promises and will be disappointed in him. And there will be a lot of them,” one of the senior staff members of “Voice” tells the BBC.

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