Game of Thrones, Kharkiv-style: who and how is fighting for the late Kernes’s seat – BBC

Game of Thrones, Kharkiv-style: who and how is fighting for the late Kernes’s seat – BBC

The election for a new mayor of Kharkiv will take place on October 31 — it was scheduled at an extraordinary session by the Verkhovna Rada. Local political and business elites are already staking their claims, and some candidates have actively entered the race. Even after his death, former Kharkiv mayor Hennadiy Kernes still exerts influence over the city's fate.

This is reported by the BBC.

At the newly scheduled extraordinary elections in Kharkiv, a successor to Hennadiy Kernes must be chosen; he died shortly after a decisive victory in the last local elections in the autumn of 2020.

Kernes won in the first round without appearing in public at all, because he spent several months receiving medical treatment in a German clinic and did not return. The late mayor’s political force, “Kernes Bloc—Successful Kharkiv,” also took first place in the city with a result of over 34%.

And although there is still more than half a year until the new elections, the campaign is already in full swing. In fact, it has been going on for more than a month.

The candidates’ enthusiasm is understandable — after Kernes’s death, who held Kharkiv with an iron grip for more than ten years, a real chance has emerged for someone else to take the mayor’s chair.

But the city still cannot fully step out of the eccentric mayor’s shadow — the two highest-rated candidates actively exploit their past ties to him and compete for voters by promising to continue Kernes’s work.

Prominent businessmen and politicians important to Kharkiv are placing their bets in the fight for one of Ukraine’s most important and largest cities.

Interlocutors of BBC News Ukraine especially note the growing influence on local political alignments of Arsen Avakov — the former head of the Kharkiv regional state administration and long-serving interior minister. Although the minister himself has not publicly expressed any preferences.

In Kernes’s shadow

The names of the favorites, as of March, are already known — they are former Kharkiv mayor and former head of the Kharkiv regional state administration Mykhailo Dobkin, and Ihor Terekhov — secretary of the Kharkiv city council, who is currently acting as the city’s mayor.

Both do not hide that they are running for mayor. Local experts confidently call both the most likely participants in the second round of the upcoming elections.

There is no obvious leader among them. Sparse local polls show a slight advantage for Dobkin, but the gap is minimal — often within the margin of error.

Both were closely associated with Kernes and are now actively using that in their campaigns, says Mykhailo Kamchatny, head of the Kharkiv branch of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine.

“If Terekhov is Kernes’s successor on the administrative line, then Dobkin is Kernes’s successor in the past on the political line. The main struggle will unfold between them,” the expert believes. “Could someone intervene in this struggle? I do not yet see such people on the horizon.”

Terekhov worked with the late mayor in the city council for many years.

Dobkin and Kernes were linked by a long friendship and political partnership. Their connection was made famous across the country by a leaked video. In the footage, Kernes off-camera in a very particular manner instructed Dobkin how to record an address to Kharkiv residents. Kernes’s sharp remarks, such as “your face is boring, no one will give you money,” became catchphrases.

However, in recent years relations between Dobkin and Kernes cooled and they hardly communicated.

Essentially Dobkin and Terekhov are now competing over who is the “best follower of Hennadiy Adolfovych,” says Kharkiv political scientist Yuliya Bidenko.

“There are very few other role models in the local political theater that bring success in elections,” she explains.

Mykhailo Dobkin insists that he is the “legitimate heir.”

“Today Mr. Terekhov is not any kind of follower of Hennadiy Kernes; he has secured the support of Arsen Avakov — administrative, informational, resource-based — and is trying to become a candidate on his behalf,” Mykhailo Dobkin told BBC News Ukraine.

Dobkin considers it his duty to continue various initiatives of the late mayor and constantly reminds people of their joint achievements, mentioning, in particular, the reconstruction of Gorky City Park.

Ihor Terekhov refused to comment to BBC News Ukraine, but in a recent interview with Babel he argued that Kernes had prepared him as a future successor.

“Why does someone think I am Avakov’s person and not Kernes’s? I worked side by side with Kernes for ten years; we were in situations both of us could have not come out of,” Terekhov said.

He also promises to continue the late mayor’s policies. He praised Gorky Park and promised a new major project — a city zoo.

Both Dobkin and Terekhov, like Kernes once, oppose decommunization. In particular, at Terekhov’s initiative the city council restored the old name of Zhovkov Avenue for the third time; it had been renamed Hryhorenko Avenue as part of decommunization. The previous two renamings were carried out under Kernes, but both times courts annulled the decision.

Both candidates were also in power when in the spring of 2014 Kharkiv found itself at the center of separatist sentiments and almost became the “capital” of the so-called Kharkiv People’s Republic.

But both insist they never sympathized with separatism and that this episode is now behind the city.

“I don’t think anyone today can really destabilize the situation in Kharkiv,” Dobkin says. “If Kharkiv residents do me the honor of making me head Kharkiv again, I will be one of the most ardent supporters of Kharkiv not swaying in any way politically.”

Betting on Terekhov

If Dobkin is a media figure recognizable far beyond Kharkiv, Terekhov until recently was not widely known even among Kharkiv residents.

“He still needs to work on his recognition,” says Mykola Zinchenko, coordinator of election observation for the OPORA civic network in Kharkiv region.

This is exactly what Terekhov has already begun to do — holding meetings with Kharkiv residents in courtyards, hanging billboards, and being more active on social networks.

Terekhov has never been a politician but rather an official with business interests, notes Mykhailo Kamchatny of the CVU. He was deputy head of the Kharkiv regional state administration when Arsen Avakov led it. He then moved to the mayor’s office to work with Kernes, with whom he worked for over ten years, and when Kernes died, he effectively took over the city.

He lacks Dobkin’s media history and charisma, Kamchatny says, but Terekhov can boast serious connections. For example, he managed to maintain friendly relations with both Avakov and Kernes, who for a long time were bitter enemies. In any case, some members of Kharkiv’s elite have already publicly supported Terekhov.

Businessman Oleksandr Yaroslavsky, whom Ukrainian Forbes included among the ten richest Ukrainians, is conspicuously jointly implementing several projects with Terekhov — building new trams for the city and reviving the Kharkiv football club Metalist.

In an interview with Ukrainska Pravda businessman Pavlo Fuks, who comes from Kharkiv and was close friends with Kernes, directly stated he will support Terekhov in the elections. He also added that, besides Yaroslavsky, Terekhov is supported by Avakov and Kharkiv businessman and politician Ihor Kotvitsky, whom the media call a friend and business partner of Avakov.

Avakov himself has not publicly expressed his electoral sympathies, but Dobkin has already stated that he considers his main rival in the elections “not Terekhov, but Avakov.”

Political scientists call Dobkin’s accusations “oversimplification” and “political technology.”

“Mykhailo Dobkin promotes the thesis of complete subordination of the current city council secretary to Avakov for several reasons,” Yuliya Bidenko believes. “On the one hand, he tries to show the competitor’s lack of independence, and on the other hand — to mobilize those who disagree with the ‘Kyiv’ course of 2014-2020 years.”

Bidenko notes that Avakov has not publicly intervened in the campaign, but the fact that earlier this year he held a loud presentation of his book “2014. Moments of the Kharkiv Spring” in Kharkiv shows that the city remains “a top priority for the minister.”

“Avakov’s positions strengthened after Kernes’s death,” Kharkiv city council deputy Dmytro Bulakh told BBC News Ukraine. “These are probably his strongest positions ever. Even when he was governor, they were not so strong.”

All experts interviewed by the BBC acknowledge that support among certain representatives of Kharkiv’s political and business elites for Terekhov is serious.

“There is a certain consensus among various influential strata of Kharkiv elites (regarding Terekhov — Ed.),” political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko says. “He is neutral, nonconflictual, and acceptable to the main players.”

Even more, Fesenko believes that the central authorities could support Terekhov.

“For them he is a factor of stability in the city,” the political scientist explains.

“Servants” in Kharkiv

The Servant of the People party does not yet have a strong candidate in Kharkiv, so the option of betting on one of the leaders in the race is quite logical.

At the last local elections the ruling party in the city was represented by Oleksiy Kucher — then head of the Kharkiv regional state administration. He took third place, gaining slightly more than 7%.

Kucher now heads the State Regulatory Service and is not politically active in Kharkiv.

Yuliya Bidenko says that in Kharkiv the Servant of the People party has “serious problems with leadership and team unity.” In the local elections in 2020 the ruling party took only fourth place in the city council.

Perhaps that is why both the current Kharkiv authorities and the central authorities in Kyiv did everything possible to ensure the mayoral elections would be held not in March but in October, the expert suggests.

First the city authorities submitted an incomplete package of documents to the parliamentary committee, which did not allow elections to be scheduled for March in time, and then the Office of the President and the Verkhovna Rada “did not give a public negative assessment” of that action.

“So I think a certain consensus of local and national elites about holding the elections in the fall has formed,” Bidenko says.

Such a postponement, she says, will allow the Servants to decide on the format of participation in the campaign, and will give Terekhov time to “promote himself” and “show himself as a strong manager.” Dobkin, in particular, is convinced that if the elections had been held in March, he would easily have beaten any candidate.

The party will make a final decision on whether Servant of the People will present a candidate for mayor later at a congress, Victoria Oleksiychuk, head of the Servant of the People faction in the Kharkiv city council, told BBC News Ukraine.

“This is a responsible decision, responsibility for the region, a large region. So coordination will be centralized,” she says.

Political scientists suggest that the Servants could still search for their own strong and recognizable candidate, but to win in a city like Kharkiv they need a politician of “national scale,” Mykhailo Kamchatny believes.

A few more candidates with long political histories in Kharkiv confirmed to BBC News Ukraine that they will also take part in the elections.

Alexander Feldman will again run for the mayor’s seat; he ran last time from OPZZh and took second place with 14%.

“This time it will be even harder,” Feldman predicts. “Because there will be many more candidates. I think there will be at least 20 people, and I’ll try to ensure there are not 20 but 35, so that Kharkiv residents have the opportunity to choose properly.”

He calls Terekhov an “imposed” candidate but speaks favorably of Dobkin.

“Dobkin truly worked with Kernes; he knows the city of Kharkiv much better than I or Terekhov,” Feldman says. “I consider Dobkin a true Kharkiv resident, a real person and a real man who gives his word and keeps it, unlike Terekhov.”

Asked whether he considers it appropriate not to participate in the elections so as not to draw votes from Dobkin, Feldman said, “there’s no need to think about that at all,” and Kharkiv residents will make their choice.

European Solidarity also said it is nominating its own candidate — well-known volunteer Oleh Abramichev (“Pirotechnik”), who in the previous mayoral election took fourth place with 6,6% and now heads the ES faction in the city council.

“The struggle will be quite fierce. But I think there are chances,” Kharkiv city council deputy from ES Ihor Pushkariov told BBC News Ukraine.

Recent polls, he says, show a rising rating for European Solidarity relative to OPZZh.

“So there is hope. We need to work in that direction,” Pushkariov adds.

The main intrigue mentioned by several candidates and experts is whether Yuliya Svitlychna — former head of the Kharkiv regional state administration and now a member of the Verkhovna Rada — will run.

In the last local elections she did not run for mayor, but her newly formed political force, Svitlychna Bloc “Razom!”, entered both the city and regional councils.

Before that Svitlychna confidently won a parliamentary seat in a majoritarian district in Kharkiv region, gaining 77,5% of voters’ votes.

The politician did not respond to BBC News Ukraine’s request about whether she would run for mayor this time, but a deputy from her political force in the Kharkiv city council, Dmytro Bulakh, said the Svitlychna Bloc “will definitely take an active part” in the upcoming elections.

How exactly and with which candidate, he said, the party will decide later.

Most likely none of these candidates will gain more than 10% of voter support, predicts Mykhailo Kamchatny.

But making final predictions now is also unwise, Yuliya Bidenko believes.

“Changes in public opinion are possible, the mayoral campaign will not be quick,” she says. “It is worth remembering that the more journalists and my colleagues talk about the lack of alternatives in the elections, the more they contribute to those sentiments among the population.”

Halyna Korba, Oksana Necheporenko, BBC