UKRAINE: IN THIS CORNER! EX-CHAMPION KLYCHKO RUNS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KIEV 001128

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PHUM SOCI
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: IN THIS CORNER! EX-CHAMPION KLYCHKO RUNS
FOR KIEV MAYORALITY AGAINST HEAVYWEIGHT INCUMBENT


(U) Sensitive but unclassified. Please handle accordingly.
Not for Internet.


1. (SBU) Summary: In a March 22 meeting with TDY PolOff,
Volodymyr Bondarenko, head of Kiev mayoral candidate (and
recent world boxing champion) Vitaliy Klychko's campaign,
described campaign impediments including incumbent Mayor
Omelchenko's use of administrative resources and biased
media coverage, but was optimistic on Klychko's chances for
pulling an upset win. Bondarenko opined that an "Orange"
majority in the Kiev Rada (city council) was likely, but
expressed doubt that his political bloc, PORA-Reforms and
Order (PRP),would participate in such a coalition, since it
would be tainted by business ties and relationships between
Omelchenko and members of the major parties, all of which
have endorsed the incumbent mayor. Comment: Complaints of
incumbent mayors of all stripes using administrative
pressures on advertisers and local media outlets are regular
throughout Ukraine, and stand in contrast to the race for
the Verkhovna Rada (national parliament),where such
pressures have been notably absent. Omelchenko is widely
believed to be one of the most corrupt mayors in Ukraine.
End summary and comment.

Omelchenko's Heavy Hand
--------------


2. (SBU) On March 22, PolOff met with Reforms and Order MP
Volodymyr Bondarenko, head of Kiev election headquarters for
retired world heavyweight boxing champion Vitaliy Klychko,
Kiev mayoral candidate and face of the PORA-Reforms and
Order Party (PRP) election bloc. Bondarenko criticized
current mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko, who has received the
endorsement of all the major parties, for impeding PORA-
PRP's campaign, contending that his party's success was the
worst prospect for current mayor Omelchenko, because only
PORA-PRP lacked ties to the mayor and took an uncompromising
anti-corruption stance.


3. (SBU) Bondarenko criticized Omelchenko, claiming the
mayor had used administrative resources to support his own
campaign, pointing to such tactics as using city financial
and land resources to garner good will. For example,
Omelchenko has scheduled a press event this week publicizing
the laying of foundations for four new university
dormitories. (Comment: We do not necessarily see
propitious timing of legitimate city hall moves as abuse of
admin resources, but rather normal use of incumbency.)
Bondarenko claimed that city-controlled mass media had not
allowed any positive materials on Klychko to be published,
although he acknowledged that the city's Radio Kiev did
allow Klychko two opportunities to speak. (Note: We
observed that TRK Kiev TV news broadcasts on March 22
favored Omelchenko, while mentioning Klychko and Leonid
Chernovetskyy (another candidate for mayor, member of Our
Ukraine parliamentary faction, and owner of Praveks bank)
exclusively in negative terms and ignoring Chernovetskyy's
press conference that day. Rukh MP Mykhaylo Pozhyvanov, who
chairs Omelchenko's campaign in Kiev, was a TV studio guest
and called Klychko a "business project" of MP Ihor Hryniv
and other businessmen in Our Ukraine who were using his good
name to realize their ambitions. (Comment: National
alliances do not always explain local rivalries.)


4. (SBU) Bondarenko alleged that the head of Kiev metro
(subway) advertising had reported receiving direct orders
not to allow Klychko's name to appear, and that other
private channels had been verbally pressured to exclude
Klychko's advertising. Posters and billboards featuring
Klychko's face and thumbs-up logo are prevalent in Kiev at
present, but Bondarenko claimed that administrative efforts
to block advertising caused them to lose two weeks of
campaigning.

Klychko's Prospects
--------------


5. (SBU) Bondarenko declined to offer any prognosis for
Klychko's mayoral prospects beyond expressing confidence
that Klychko would win and acknowledging that it was a close
race. (Note: We are not aware of recent polls backing this
contention. One survey showed Omelchenko and Klychko
polling about 27 percent and 21 percent, respectively. The
widely respected Democratic Initiatives' polling from 14-22
February put Omelchenko at 31 percent and Klychko and
Chernovetskyy at about 15 percent each among likely voters.)


6. (SBU) Bondarenko noted that the vote results would depend
in part on the performance of some trailing candidates who
might be able to take votes away from Klychko, but who had
no real chance in the election. Bondarenko displayed a
series of one-page newspapers highlighting Omelchenko's
false promises and allegedly corrupt actions using cartoons
and humor in a style reminiscent of many past PORA
activities. (Note: The PORA party is an offshoot of the
pro-democracy NGO that figured prominently in the 2004
Orange Revolution street action.) The papers have a print
run of 20,000 and are distributed daily on the metro.


7. (SBU) On the subject of Klychko's potential first steps
as mayor, Bondarenko related a series of administrative
measures to restructure power in the city, including the
elimination of secret decisions in the city government and
allowing citizens greater access to information, the
creation of micro-regions within large city districts to
bring administrative bodies closer to the people, and the
reorganization of similar functions, such as medical
services, now divided among multiple bodies, into single
departments. Bondarenko spoke of the party's general plan
for city development and the need to develop a detailed plan
based on localized understanding and expert evaluation of
land values.

An "Orange" City Rada, likely supporting Omelchenko,
but without PORA-PRP
-------------- --------------


8. (SBU) Bondarenko claimed there was no question that PORA-
PRP would pass three-percent threshold for the city Rada,
along with Yuliya Tymoshenko's Bloc (BYuT),Our Ukraine,
Regions, the Socialists, and perhaps Rada Speaker Lytvyn's
party. He predicted no difficulty in forming an "Orange"
majority in the city Rada, but he emphatically excluded the
possibility of PORA-PRP participating in any coalition that
supported Omelchenko. Bondarenko predicted that the ties
between Omelchenko and members of leading parties --
including all the parties except PORA-PRP -- would prevent
the majority coalition from pursuing a reform agenda.


9. (SBU) Calling Our Ukraine "a business holding company,"
he alleged that influential Our Ukraine figures including
Mykola Martynenko and Petro Poroshenko had business
interests in Kiev that made them primarily interested in
preserving ties with Omelchenko. Ties between Tymoshenko
and Omelchenko were more indirect, he claimed, through
oligarch Mykhaylo Brodsky, deputy chair of her campaign, and
representatives of the "Zaporizhzhya clan" who had common
business interests with the current mayor. (Note: There is
no such clan that we know of; even within Zaporizhzhya, the
main industrial magnates split their support across a range
of parties. This is probably a reference to the two
Zaporizhzhyan businessmen on BYuT's Rada list, No. 41 Tariel
Vasadze and No. 60 Vasyl Khmelnytskyy, who allegedly owns
the building in the historic Podil section of Kiev to which
Tymoshenko recently moved her party headquarters.)
Bondarenko also observed that, in the current city Rada,
Omelchenko controlled 72 percent of its 90 deputies,
allowing him to effectively control its decisions, and a
contingent of these old faces were retained on the lists of
various parties.

Bio Note
--------------


10. (SBU) Vitaliy Klychko was born on 19 July 1971 in a
village in Bylovodsk, Kyrgyz SSR. In 1988, he graduated
from school in Kiev, and until 1996 studied in the physical
education department of the Pereyaslav-Kmelnytskyy teaching
institute. In 2000, he completed a graduate degree in
physical education and sports at Kiev University and
received a doctorate specializing in Olympic and
professional sports. He is a six-time world champion kick
boxer, three-time Ukrainian boxing champion, and held a
number of other world boxing titles, most recently WBC world
heavyweight champion, before retiring in late 2005. In
1997, he founded and headed an international fund for
assisting the development of sport "Sport-21st Century." In
2003, he and his brother Volodymyr, another world-class
boxer, founded the charitable organization "Fund of the
Klychko Brothers." In 2005, Klychko was appointed an
advisor to President Yushchenko and led the state program
"Health of the Nation." He also joined the national
coordinating council on HIV/AIDS. In 2005, after a knee
injury forced him to give up boxing, he declared his
intention of leaving sports and running for Kiev city mayor.


11. (SBU) Klychko and his wife Natalya were married in 1996
and have three children: Ihor, age 5, and twins Viktoriya
and Maksimko, who turn one in 2006. In addition to sports,
Klychko enjoys music, chess and literature; and in 2003 he
wrote a book with his brother and wife, "Our Fitness: Simple
Secrets of Champions."

SIPDIS


12. (SBU) Comment: A Klychko victory at the polls would be
a refreshing change in Kiev city government.

HERBST