POROSHENKO’S EUROPEAN SOLIDARITY PARTY PRESENTS CANDIDATES FOR PARLIAMENT
Artur Korniienko
June 9, 2019
Former President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has unveiled his list of the top-10 people who will lead his re-branded party, European Solidarity, into the July 21 parliamentary elections.
They were revealed at the party convention on June 9. Half of of the candidate lawmakers are from the past while the other half are new faces to parliamentary politics.
“We are going to the Verkhovna Rada to mobilize everyone to achieve Ukraine’s membership of the European Union and NATO: those who, based on election results, will become the authorities and will form the government, and those who will fill the niche of the parliamentary opposition. And certainly to mobilize the efforts of the new president,” Poroshenko, the leader of the party, said at the convention.
European Solidarity party is a new political project, but largely a rebranding and reorganization of the former Petro Poroshenko Bloc. The party positions itself as pro-European and pro-Nato. Poroshenko’s nationalistic and conservative rhetoric appears to put the party at the center-right of Ukraine’s political spectrum.
Besides Poroshenko, three people on the list, Iryna Gerashchenko, Mustafa Dzhemilev and Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze were members of Poroshenko’s party before it was rebranded. Andriy Parubiy was a member of the People’s Front party that was in coalition with Poroshenko’s party.
A military commander, a singer, a medical volunteer and a former Crimean Tatar political prisoner in Russia represent some new faces on the European Solidarity party ballot. Lviv Oblast governor Oleh Synyutka has not formerly been a member of parliament but has been involved in regional politics.
1. Petro Poroshenko – President of Ukraine, 2014-2019.
2. Andriy Parubiy – Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament since 2016, member of the People’s Front party from 2014-2019.
3. Iryna Gerashchenko – First Deputy Chairwoman of the Ukrainian Parliament since 2016, Chairwoman of the Parliamentary Committee on European Integration, member of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc in 2014-2019.
4. Mykhailo Zabrodskyi – Lieutenant General of the Airborne Forces, commander of military operations in the east of Ukraine since 2017.
5. Sofiya Fedyna, singer and TV presenter.
6.Mustafa Dzhemilev – former Head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People and Commissioner for the Affairs of Crimean Tatars under former President Poroshenko, member of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc from 2014-2019.
7. Yana Zinkevych – medical volunteer, founder of the Hospitaliery medical volunteer battalion.
8. Oleh Synyutka – Governor of Lviv Oblast since 2014, First Deputy Mayor of Lviv, 2007-2014.
9. Akhtem Chiygoz – Deputy Head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People since 2008, who was politically imprisoned by Russia in 2015-2017.
10. Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze – Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for European and Euro-Atlantic integration since 2016, member of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, 2014-2019.
The top-10 members list of the European Solidarity party has six men and four women.
European Solidarity has not yet announced the full lists of its members that will participate in the parliamentary elections.
In the latest polls, the European Solidarity party is expected to receive 7.8 percent of the vote, passing the 5-percent threshold, according to a Rating Group Ukraine poll published on June 5. It has the third largest support rating, trailing behind Russia-friendly Opposition Platform – For Life with 10.7-percent support.
