Which of the major Ukrainian businessmen can become a people’s deputy in early parliamentary elections
More than 5,000 people are participating in early elections to the Verkhovna Rada. 16 of them are participants in the ranking of the hundred richest businessmen according to Ukrainian Forbes.
Millionaires and billionaires are on the lists of almost all parties except the Popular Front. But most often they prefer to run in majoritarian districts.
Billionaires
Vadim Novinsky
Net worth: $1,400 million
Business: Smart-Holding group of companies, owning 27.5% of R. Akhmetov’s Metinvest. The richest businessman in Ukraine is Novinsky’s partner in the agro-industrial holding HarvEast
Just two years ago, Novinsky was a Russian citizen and could not run for parliament. These elections will be his second. For the first time, Novinsky received a deputy mandate, winning the race in majoritarian district No. 224 with the center in Sevastopol.
After being elected people’s deputy, Novinsky joined the Party of Regions.
According to an investigation by a group of journalists called Yanukovichleks, Vadim Novinsky is one of 22 members of the presidential hunting club “Kedr”, which included the most influential Ukrainian politicians and businessmen of the Yanukovych era.
Novinsky continued to “invest” in the district after the elections: he held meetings with voters and financed the local football club “Sevastopol”. After the annexation of Crimea, the businessman apologized to the fans and announced that he would no longer sponsor Sevastopol football.
Novinsky is number 11 on the list of the Opposition Bloc for early elections.
Konstantin Zhevago
Net worth: $1,100 million
Business: Ferrexpo group of companies (Poltava and Eristovsky GOKs, Belanovskoye and Galeshchinskoye iron ore deposits), Finance and Credit Bank, KrAZ, Rosava tire plant
If elected, the youngest billionaire in Ukraine will become a people’s deputy for the seventh time. As in 2012, he is running in constituency No. 150, which is located in the Poltava region, in the city of Komsomolsk. In the same place as the Poltava Mining and Processing Plant, which belongs to him. Employees of the enterprise are Zhevago’s main electoral base; in the last elections, more than 60% of voters voted for him.
In recent years, some media outlets have called Konstantin Zhevago the main sponsor of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc. In 2011, the billionaire’s business became the object of close attention from law enforcement agencies. Checks were carried out at the Rosava tire plant, at the Finance and Credit bank, and at the Vorskla football club, which belongs to a businessman. Zhevago did not participate in the vote for dictatorial laws on January 16, nor in the adoption of the “Lustration Law.” On voting days, the businessman was not at work. The billionaire is one of the worst truants in the Rada: in two years he registered at work only 38 times.
Sergey Tigipko
Net worth: $1,000 million
Business: TAS Insurance Company, Dneprovagonmash, Kremenchug Steel Plant
According to the BBC, Sergei Tigipko until the last minute negotiated with the parties included in the “Opposition Bloc” about a joint campaign for the elections. We didn’t agree. The stumbling block was the politician’s demand that the Party for the Development of Ukraine and the Party of Regions join his “Strong Ukraine”.
But potential partners insisted on a separate site,” Boris Kolesnikov said in a commentary to the BBC. However, Tigipko gives a completely different reason. “People in this bloc are tainted by corruption and, to put it mildly, unpatriotic,” he said at a congress of his political force.
“Strong Ukraine” has a good chance of entering parliament. Donbass can provide the necessary number of votes to the political force. For voters, Tigipko’s regional party claims to be a “third force” between pro-government parties and discredited PR politicians, who have united into the “Opposition Bloc.”
Millionaires
Sergey Taruta
Net worth: $479 million
Business: Corporation “Industrial Union of Donbass”
Governor of the Donetsk region Sergei Taruta will run in elections as a self-nominated candidate in his native Mariupol.
One of the richest people in Donbass found himself in a difficult situation. The capital of the region entrusted to him is under the control of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, and the entrepreneur’s business was arrested by decision of the Russian courts. “My business no longer exists… And the assets that were seized, assets that are located both here in Ukraine and outside Ukraine, according to the decision of the Basmanny Court, the fairest court in the world, these assets are arrested today,” he said he is in the Persha Shpalta program.
Most likely, the seizure of assets is an attempt to put pressure on Taruta. A controlling stake in ISD belongs to anonymous Russian investors who borrowed money for the purchase from the state-owned Vnesheconombank. The key enterprises of the ISD – Alchevsk Metallurgical Plant and Alchevskkoks – are located in territory controlled by the separatists.
Alexander Feldman
Net worth: $248 million
Business: The largest market in the country is Barabashovo
The owner of “Barabashovo” in Kharkov was elected on the list of the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc in the 2007 early elections. In 2011, after Viktor Yanukovych came to power, Feldman moved to the Party of Regions faction. A year later, in the parliamentary elections, he entered the Rada as a nominee from this party in majoritarian district No. 174 in Kharkov.
On October 26, the owner of Barabashovo intends to repeat his success: he is running in his home district as a self-nominated candidate. The candidate has no serious competitors.
Vyacheslav Boguslaev
Net worth: $234 million
Business: Motor Sich PJSC, which develops, produces and maintains aircraft engines
Vyacheslav Boguslaev has been a permanent MP since 2006. Since then, he has never changed his political preferences and remained a regionalist.
According to the Liga.net portal, about 70% of the revenue of the Motor Sich enterprise owned by Boguslaev comes from exports to Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism). The company supplies helicopter engines to the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism), and also imports components for manufactured mechanisms from Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism). Boguslaev’s enterprise is in no hurry to refuse to export to a country with which Ukraine is actually at war. The main argument is that the products are intended exclusively for civil aircraft.
Boguslaev is running in majoritarian district No. 77 in Zaporozhye. From the Poroshenko Bloc, Boguslaev is opposed by Zaporozhye businessman Alexander Lekhovitser. In the Zaporozhye media they call him the man of Alexander Anisimov, the famous “supervisor” of the Zaporozhye region from the “Donetsk”.
Alexander Gerega
Net worth: $218 million
Business: construction hypermarkets “Epicenter”
The founder of Epicenter is going to the Verkhovna Rada for the second time and again – in the majority district 192 in the Khmelnitsky region. In 2012, 58% of voters here voted for him. According to the then competitor in the district, Yaroslav Musiya, Gerega was bribing voters by providing cars and building materials to the village councils. Musiy is again running in the same constituency with a millionaire. Yulia Tymoshenko’s bloc put forward Gerega’s rival.
There are no candidates from the Poroshenko Bloc in the constituency.
Gerega, as a former member of the Party of Regions faction, voted synchronously with the regionals, including against the resignation of Azarov’s Cabinet in December 2013. This was the reason that Epicenter was included in the Party of Regions’ “Boycott of Products” list. In Western Ukraine, pickets were organized near hypermarkets and leaflets were posted with calls not to buy anything at Epicenters.
Valery Khoroshkovsky
Net worth: $210 million
The former owner of the Inter TV channel has not lived in Ukraine since 2012. He preferred elite Monaco to Kyiv, where he met with both journalists and Ukrainian businessmen and politicians.
This fact did not prevent “Strong Ukraine,” bypassing the law’s requirement that the candidate must live in the country for 5 years, to include Khoroshkovsky on the election list. Yesterday, the Kiev Administrative Court of Appeal accepted for consideration a complaint demanding the cancellation of Khoroshkovsky’s registration. The lawsuit was filed by candidates from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc – journalists Sergei Leshchenko, Mustafa Nayem and Svetlana Zalischuk.
“We have doubts about the reliability of the documents provided by Khoroshkovsky to the Central Election Commission,” Nayem noted on his Facebook page.
Nikolai Rudkovsky
Net worth: $195 million
Business: oil and gas company Neftegazdobycha
Together with Nestor Shufrich, he owns a stake in the largest oil and gas company Neftegazdobycha. In 2013, Rudkovsky sold a 25% stake to Akhmetov’s holding company DTEK, gaining $125 million.
The controversial Minister of Transport, known for his love of charters at public expense, is running in constituency No. 210 in the Chernihiv region. In 2012, thanks to him, he got into parliament.
After winning the elections, the millionaire joined the Party of Regions faction, which he left in March 2014. Now Rudkovsky is running as a self-nominated member of the Socialist Party of Ukraine. Oleg Dmitrenko, a well-known businessman in the Chernihiv region, is running for the constituency from the Poroshenko Bloc.
Nestor Shufrich
Net worth: $195 million
Rudkovsky’s partner in Neftegazdobycha, a former member of the Party of Regions, is running for the Verkhovna Rada on the list of the “Opposition Bloc” at number 7. Shufrich was an active speaker of the Party of Regions, and in the summer, together with Viktor Medvedchuk, participated in negotiations with the leaders of the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR.
According to Shufrich, he and his colleagues intend to protect the citizens of Ukraine from the authorities. “By uniting, together we will become a powerful voice of the South-East in the next Rada and keep Ukraine united,” he said.
Sergey Klyuev
Net worth: $166 million
Business: PJSC Semiconductor Plant, PJSC Ukrpodshipnik, ActivSolar company
Sergei Klyuev’s older brother, Andrei, was until February 2014 one of the most influential politicians in the country and one of Yanukovych’s closest associates. In December 2013, Ukrainian media wrote that it was Klyuev who was one of the initiators of the dispersal of the student Maidan on November 30. The politician denied these accusations in every possible way.
Since 2010, the Klyuev enterprises have received multimillion-dollar loans from the state-owned Ukreximbank, as well as financial assistance from special funds to repay these loans. With the active support of the state, the Klyuevs’ company Activ Solar became a monopolist in the production of solar electricity. The tariff for electricity obtained from solar power plants in Ukraine is one of the highest in the world.
According to UNIAN, an investigation has been launched in Austria into money laundering by Sergei Klyuev’s brother Andrey. Klyuev is running in constituency No. 46 in Artemovsk, where he was nominated as a candidate from the Party of Regions in 2012. Now he has registered as a self-nominated candidate. Klyuev has a great chance of success – all the large enterprises controlled by the brothers are concentrated in the city. Their employees will be able to provide the former regional member with parliamentary immunity.
Klyuev has virtually no competitors on the site. In addition to him, self-nominated Alexander Rzhavsky is running in the district, who received 0.03% of the votes in the presidential elections in 2004. Also opposing the brother of the former head of the Yanukovych administration is the long-term mayor of Krasny Liman Leonid Perebiynis, the unemployed Natalya Kidina, a member of Strong Ukraine, and two more unknown self-nominated candidates.
Leonid Klimov
Net worth: $122 million
Business: Imex Bank, Ilyichevsk Reinforced Concrete Structures Plant, Black Sea hotel chain, eight shopping centers
The other day, People’s Deputy from the Party of Regions Leonid Klimov was pelted with eggs. This happened at a meeting with voters in the village of Belino, Baltsky district, where the ex-adviser of Viktor Yanukovych is running in early elections.
According to Odessa media reports, Klimov dodged the “shells” flying at him and even tied up one of the offenders. After which he sang the Ukrainian anthem with the remaining attackers.
Tariel Vasadze
Net worth: $104 million
Business: Ukravto company, one of the country’s largest manufacturers and importers of cars
Businessman Tariel Vasadze is one of the most famous political weather vanes. From 2006 to 2010, he was a deputy and the main sponsor of the political force of Yulia Tymoshenko. After Yanukovych came to power, the businessman defected to the ranks of the regionals. In the current elections, Vasadze did not change his inconstancy – he entered the list of “Strong Ukraine” at passing number 11.
The Zaporozhye Automobile Plant, owned by Vasadze, will go into “sleep” mode from October 15, the businessman said. This means that the enterprise will operate at a minimum capacity of 6 cars per hour. The businessman plans that the plant will operate in this mode for 3 months, and then the situation in the country will improve.
Igor Eremeev Stepan Ivakhiv
Net worth: $87 million; $87 million
Business: gas station network WOG, dairy company “Galicia”
Candidates are business partners in the Continuum group of companies. Until 2013 the company Iwahiwa and Eremeeva was the largest importer of gasoline to Ukraine. But it was squeezed out by the structures of another player in the fuel market – Sergei Kurchenko.
At the beginning of 2014, Continuum faced a large-scale tax audit and the arrest of gasoline trains at the border. This is how the current government forced businessmen to vote “correctly” in parliament. Eremeev at that time actually headed a group of non-factional deputies, which included about 10 deputies.
Ivakhiv and Eremeev are running in majoritarian constituencies in their native Volyn region. They have a high chance of getting into the Verkhovna Rada. For the last two years, millionaires have constantly helped village councils.
Igor Palitsa
Net worth: $72 million
Business: Partner of Igor Kolomoisky in the Privat group and governor of the Odessa region.
Palitsa became the governor of the Odessa region during a difficult period. He was appointed to this position after the events of May 2, when a fire in the House of Trade Unions killed more than 40 people. He managed to keep the situation peaceful – there are no separatist rallies in Odessa, and no monuments to Lenin are being demolished.
“As for the statements of fools and provocateurs regarding the task of reaching Odessa: I understand that many refrigerators have become vacant in your country due to the refusal of European products, but is there really a better use than delivering “little green men” from the territory of our country to “Can’t you find their relatives?” Palitsa recently wrote on his Facebook page (the author’s punctuation and spelling have been preserved).
The governor of Odessa is nominated to the Verkhovna Rada on the list of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc.
Ekateriana Shapoval, HUBs