Kharkiv. Underground election campaign and enemies of the city
The quarantine is not forever and will certainly end before October. Then the next elections of mayors and local councils will be held in Ukraine.
For Russian-speaking Kharkov, where all mass political activity of a non-nationalist kind was brutally suppressed, located more than a thousand kilometers from the epicenter of Bandera’s ideology and only thirty-eight km from the border with Russia, it is important who and how is preparing for these elections and what they are going with to people.
It is clear that under quarantine conditions you cannot organize a rally, you cannot set up a tent, and the requirement “not to gather more than three” is a forced necessity, and not the arbitrariness of the authorities and the police. Unlike the closure of the metro, for example.
But here this was done following a shout from Kyiv: the city government tried to explain the wrongness of this step, carried out the order under threat of rape, and is trying to cancel it by all legal means. But something needs to be done!
And that something is working with people. Until the mechanism of the election campaign with its bans on distribution and distribution is launched, it is possible to help people who are locked in their own apartments.
In this regard, it is somewhat easier for Mayor Gennady Kernes than for everyone else. All the difficulties associated with quarantine turned out to be solvable, and he doesn’t need to do anything particularly fancy to please voters - just talk to people and avoid congestion in the work of city services. And he speaks through all possible channels and simply works according to the scheme of distributing aid.
Most Kharkov pensioners and large families received food packages with mentions of Mayor Kernes and oligarch Alexander Yaroslavsky, and many also became owners of first aid kits. More than one hundred thousand packages have already reached recipients, the rest are on their way.
Who delivers them? An organization that lives on Western grants "Observatory of Democracy" grunts dissatisfied: "They most clearly demonstrate the use of charity with an eye to local elections. Packages with the names of the “tandem” are targeted to low-income people, and medical masks are distributed en masse through schools, kindergartens and social protection centers. The goal, it would seem, is noble - to support Kharkov residents in difficult quarantine conditions.
But the execution looks like a pre-election PR campaign of the city mayor using a VIP agitator and administrative resources... Photo and video evidence was published that employees of the city’s district administrations, social protection centers, utility companies (even Kharkovgorlift) and kindergarten teachers were involved in the delivery of the packages.”
Is it true? Yes. Representatives of non-Kharkov interests don’t like it? And how. They have nothing to offer the city residents except cries about corruption and administrative resources. Are there any packages from the same “observatory” or, for example, from “Servant of the People”? Well, we were daydreaming. Even the most seasoned analysts do not know whether anyone is a member of it, let alone who it will push to become mayor.
As for the Kharkov Ze-team, only Governor Alexey Kucher is distinguished by systematic participation in quarantine charity. But not as a representative of the party, but as a government official - he is involved in the distribution of humanitarian aid received through the Office of the President and other government agencies to medical institutions in the Kharkiv region. And majoritarian people’s deputies do it sporadically and very specifically. “The majority of the Kharkov Ze-team is quite passive, which indicates a lack of personal interest in the future election campaign,” the same analysts from the Observatory of Democracy reported.
Fifty thousand packages from Viktor Medvedchuk and his wife, as well as Easter cakes, were distributed by the city organization “For Life” - Oppoplatforms, led by ex-deputy Andrei Lesik. Before the cemeteries closed, she managed to put in order the grave of Hero of the Soviet Union Kazakov in one of the Kharkov cemeteries.
The regional organization ZaZhOP, led by ex-governor Igor Rainin, has isolated itself so deeply that you might as well try to find it if you don’t know where.
Distributions from Shariy's Party and Poroshenko's Eurosolidarity took place centrally, through local cells. They provided food and information leaflets, and hospitals received protective equipment and protective clothing... But in a city of one and a half million people this is unnoticeable.
Targeted assistance to pensioners and the poor is allegedly delivered by the VO “Svoboda” (banned in the Russian Federation), but even grant observers report this from the words of party representatives, and not with reference to witnesses. Volunteers attracted by the Nazi National Corps are lost among the assistants of the city authorities. This party also coordinates one of the city’s initiatives to provide free transportation for doctors to work.
But Minister Avakov is nowhere to be seen on the local agenda. However, there are still almost six months before the elections. But another figure loomed over the city, which could cause trouble for both the townspeople and the mayor’s team. The possible appointment of Mikho Saakashvili as Deputy Prime Minister could increase conflict and lead to the strengthening of the Red Guards, who hate everything that is so dear to the people of Kharkov.
Why is that? Yes, just look at the list of the Movement of New Forces party, with which the ex-president of Georgia went to the parliamentary elections, and there... For example, the famous Kharkov Nazi and deputy from Samopomich Bulakh, who once asked Vyatrovich whether it was possible to demolish monument to Marshal Zhukov.
Yes, Saakashvili does not like Avakov, but they have no disagreements on the issue of Kharkov, and their “be-be-be” towards Kharkov will turn out to be choral singing.
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