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FORMER HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMP SEEKS NEW LIFE AS MAYOR OF UKRAINIAN CAPITAL KIEV PDF Print E-mail
Wednesday, 15 March 2006

By Mara D. Bellaby, AP Worldstream, Kiev, Ukraine, Sun, Mar 12, 2006

 

KIEV - The former heavyweight boxing champion climbed nimbly onto the back of a pickup truck as the crowd roared his name. Vitali Klitschko smiled shyly and took a deep breath. In this fight, Klitschko is the underdog - a position he's not used to.

Klitschko is running for mayor of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, in a contest that is about housing and garbage collection on the outside, but is also highly personal, and closely bound up in the Orange Revolution, Ukraine's 2004 leap into full democracy.

The mayor whose job he wants is a close friend of his, and he is also running for Parliament in national elections on March 26, the same day as the mayoral race, heading the candidate list of a new anti-corruption, pro-Orange Revolution political bloc.

In a field of 41 candidates, most opinion polls give the lead to the 67-year-old incumbent, Oleksandr Omelchenko, a decade in the job and seeking a third term. Omelchenko leads by 6 percent in most polls, though the latest reported a dead heat. Most gave a margin of error of two percentage points.

A 34-year-old millionaire, 6 feet 8 inches (2.03 meters) tall and weighing 245 pounds (110.6 kilograms), Klitschko cuts an Arnold Schwarzenegger-like figure on the campaign trail.

"I'm not here because I need fame or a job," he told a couple of hundred Ukrainians - women in head scarves, autograph-hunting boys, black-clad young men - who turned out to hear him on a cold Saturday morning. "I want to clear the road for new ideas," he said, glancing often at prepared notes. "I want to work for you."

Most applauded, but some were just there for the autograph of a national hero. "I don't know if I'll vote for him - I just wanted him to sign something for my son," said Oleh Mashmanov.

Klitschko "is one of the next generation of politicians," said analyst Stanislav Belkovsky at a discussion of those poised to replace the Orange Revolution leaders whose appeal is already beginning to weaken in this ex-Soviet republic of 47 million.

"He's young and by 35 will have learned what Omelchenko won't be able to learn by 70," said Ivan Saliy of the Kiev-based Institute for Ukraine's Steady Development. He would be "a mayor with room for growth."

Klitschko retired unexpectedly from boxing in November after hurting his knee in training and pulling out of a defense of his WBC heavyweight champion title. That left his younger brother and fellow boxer, Wladimir, alone to carry the sporting mantle of "the Klitschko brothers."

Vitali and Wladimir, sons of a teacher and Air Force officer, rose to fame not only by pounding their opponents, but also by smashing boxing stereotypes. Both have Ph.D's in physical education and sport from Kiev University, and the elder Klitschko lets it be known that he plays a mean game of chess and relaxes by reading serious literature.

At the height of the 2004 Orange Revolution mass protests, Vitali Klitschko wore a small orange sash on his boxing trunks while pummeling British challenger Danny Williams in Las Vegas, then flew home to take the stage alongside President-to-be Viktor Yushchenko at the height of the revolution. Yushchenko made Klitschko an adviser.

In running for mayor of the city of 4 million he is taking on his longtime friend and former boxing patron. Omelchenko had been quoted as saying the Klitschko brothers were like sons to him, while Klitschko reportedly declared that he fought better when Omelchenko was at a match.

That may explain why the race is much more sedate than analysts predicted.

"Klitschko is young and energetic. Ukraine needs people like him," said

supporter Valentyna Rudenko, 60, waving a small Klitschko campaign flag.

"And he lived in America. I want to live like you do in America. He

understands what that means."

But that also works against him. At news conferences, he is often asked how he can run a city that he has spent so little time in recently, having made his principal home abroad. His preference for speaking Russian rather than Ukrainian also upsets nationalists eager to shake off a long history of Russian domination.

Klitschko says he's learning, and now starts off his speeches in Ukrainian. He also counters that with his international profile and contact book, he can promote Kiev's image abroad and apply solutions that work in other capitals.

 

???????????? ????????-???????? The Action Ukraine Report, Washington, USA, March 14, 2006
 
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CHARTER

CHARTER OF MAIDAN VALUES

The peaceful, democratic and at the same time extremely stylish and beautiful Orange revolution did not end up during the days of Presidential elections. Free and thoughtful choice was important, first, but far not the last step in the program of democratic changes enabled by the sufferings by millions of Ukrainians.

Orange revolution was not a choice of personalities, whom the power was delegated. It was a choice of values on which the New Ukraine was to be built.  Millions went out to the streets to stand up not for their mercantile interests, but for the high ideals of Freedom, Democracy, Morality, Justice, and Citizens’ Dignity. The historic choice of Ukrainian nation proves that the rebirth of Ukraine can be achieved first of all by adhering to the values that were expressed in the slogans of Maidan:

Freedom ‘FREEDOM CANNOT BE STOPPED!’

Aspiration of citizens to self-realization and self-assertion, to reaching basic human rights may not be limited by any brutal force. The citizens are allowed everything that is not forbidden by the law.

The use of force, manipulations, intimidation, violations of law and disrespect of moral norms will not save any government from failure. Because such a power will never be supported by its people.

Democracy “TOGETHER WE ARE MANY! WE CANNOT BE OVERCOME!”

The people’s will is a source of legitimacy and efficiency of the government’s actions. In case of brutal disrespect of peoples’ will, people have a right to protest. The joint collective action by self-organized citizens, based on the peaceful and non-violent struggle for their rights, cannot be won by the cliques of the usurpers of power. Unification of the efforts of citizens and organizations into the joint political civic platform of cooperation is the guarantee of effective democratic control of those in power and prevention from the possible reemergence of an authoritarian regime.

Unity ‘EAST AND WEST – TOGETHER!’

Ukraine is a united country, although its citizens are distinguished through cultural, linguistic, religious, regional and ethnical diversity. The residents of Ukraine are UKRAINIANS, CITIZENS OF ONE STATE notwithstanding their political views, cultural orientations and regional identities. All those who incite to regional (religious, linguistic, ethnic, etc.) split should be condemned by the citizens and prosecuted by law.

Rule of Law ‘CRIMINALS – TO JAIL, PROTECTION TO HONEST!’

All political criminals, including the organizers of election fraud, must incur the deserved and irrevocable punishment. The society and government must go through the period of clearance from the previous experience of abandoning the law. Only the genuine clarification will end with a real affirmation of the rule of law as a really functioning and the only possible principle of justice, instead of its manipulation to satisfy the private interests of a few.

The facts of stealing of state property and finances have to find the reflection in the court sentences. Criminals may not remain in the power, and the system of governance shouldn’t create new criminals. The government is supposed to act only within its functions and in compliance with the Law.

Europeanism ‘EUROPEAN UKRAINE’

Ukraine belongs to the European continent not only in the geographical sense. It is truly European civilization, and even more, it carries a seed of the future Europe, a valuable impulse for the renewing of democracy.

Nowadays Ukraine has to assert its European identity, become an integral participant of social, political, and economical processes in Europe. Institutionally this is measured by attaining the membership and active participation in the leading integrative communities at the European and Euro-Atlantic area. This is a way to satisfy the national interests of Ukraine in the strategic perspective.   

Action ‘WE ARE GOING!’

The control over adherence to the Maidan values is overtaken by the new generation of Ukrainians, whose outlook has been formed in the era of Independence. The generation, which gives all its hopes to self-realization with irrevocability of democratic changes in Ukraine.

The Maidan values can only be really settled through the active citizens’ participation in the political and civic life.

IT IS TIME TO LIVE AND WORK FOR THE COMMON GOAL!

Adopted by the delegates of the Congress of Civic Party PORA

22 August, 2005, Square of Independence

 
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