KIEV (dpa) – Ambitious Ukrainian local politician and undisputed Kiev city boss Oleksander Omelchenko has finally hit the big time.
Mid-January, Omelchenko became an official player in national politics in a distinctly Ukrainian way: via an embarassing tape made public by his enemies.Ukraine’s most notorious scandal, connoisseurs of dirty European politics will recall, broke a year ago, when a former bodyguard speaking dead-pan on video accused President Leonid Kuchma of (among other things) fixing elections and kidnapping opposition journalists.The new tape is less damning, but more emotional.In recordings of two mobile phone conversations, the Kiev city hall head seemingly flirts with panic while discussing an upcoming parliament vote with ex-prime minister Viktor Yuschenko, who happened to be 150 kilometres away driving in a car.Omelchenko: “Leave Vinitsia today! Turn around right now and come back! I beg you! Return to Kiev!”Yuschenko: “Oleksander Sanych (Omelchenko), that is, just a second, I already spoke with…”Yuschenko goes on to explain he already coordinated support for the bill, the vote is in the bag, and that Omelchenko should just calm down. It doesn’t work.Omelchenko: “I beg you! Or return to Kiev!”Yuschenko: All right.Omelchenko: Did you understand me? The fate of Ukraine is being decided! Return to Kiev!”The vote was a (successful) motion to fire a parliamentary vice speaker; hardly the stuff to make or break nations. The tapes exposed no crimes.But within hours of their publication Omelchenko asked police to investigate “illegal recording and publicizing of private conversations”. His complaint said “certain persons” were undermining his reputation as an effective administrator.Without doubt, Omelchenko is one of those politicians who gets things done.His most popular civic initiative began in 1996, when crumbling sewage lines, the Chernobyl nuclear power station upstream, and galloping inflation threatened Kiev’s water system.Omelchenko ordered city crews to start drilling, deep. Workers lined the holes with nice tiles, awnings, pulleys and ropes; and Kievites began gathering for chats and a bucket of safe water at the neighbourhood artesian well.Critics lambasted Omelchenko for recreating Ukrainian villages in a modern big city, but the wells are an unqualified success: any Kievite, almost anywhere, can have all the safe drinking water he wants, for free. More than 160 were built and more are under construction, Omelchenko boasted late last year.Educated as a construction engineer, Omelchenko has coordinated a facelift of dozens of blocks of buildings in the city centre, and a wide-reaching overhaul of city services.New schools are being built and old ones refurbished. A monument to national independence (admittedly suspiciously similar to Hungary’s), was erected in Kiev’s main square. The underground railway not only runs on time, but adds a station a year. Snow is cleared from streets, rapidly.Ukraine’s economy is booming so Kiev receives plenty of tax money, which helps. Citizens know well who controls the city purse strings, as city hall meetings are televised, with broadcasts usually dominated by Omelchenko’s Communist-style harangues of his subordinates.Still, urban management isn’t all kissing pretty girls, which Omelchenko, 64, admits as a weakness. Kiev’s stray dogs defy the mayor’s repeated announcements of their annihilation. Emergency room workers say all those new sidewalks Omelchenko built turn to dangerous skating rinks when iced over.Detractors claim Omelchenko uses the city police to repress demonstrations and small businesses, and that his administration is corrupt. The mayor counters that he is honest, and that his police provide the law and order citizens want.Omelchenko in 1998 won re-election with a massive 75 per cent margin. Ukrainian magnate, Dynamo Kyiv owner, and Omelchenko arch- rival Hryorhy Surkis was the ignominious loser.Which brings up January’s tapes. The man Omelchenko was exposed in the tapes to have been plotting against, Viktor Medvedchiuk, is a member of Surkis’ Social Democrat party.Surkis has not commented publicly on the incident, but Medvedchiuk told Ukrainska Pravda magazine he lost his job as a parliament vice speaker due to “a vendetta” against Surkis’ party.Omelchenko, meanwhile, said no matter the result of his parliament bid he intended to stay mayor, as in his opinion Kievites want him in the job.“I have lots of work to do,” he said.
