Looters and swindlers, or What awaits Dobkin in the elections in Kharkov
Everything is heading towards the fact that early elections for the Kharkov mayor will be scheduled for October 31. It is this date that appears in the draft resolution (5292), which was registered in the Verkhovna Rada from the relevant committee on state power and local government
The main question now is: how will the main opponents of Igor Terekhov, the faceless Kharkov protege of the Kyiv authorities, fill this long pause.
The acting mayor and his team did everything to ensure that these early elections did not take place at the end of March. At the same time, he lost his strategic initiative: he did not use the opportunity to strike while the iron was hot and convert the result of the October local elections in his favor.
After all, if the procedure had been followed and Terekhov had sent the necessary document on the death of the mayor of Kernes to the Verkhovna Rada on time, the elections could have taken place on the last Sunday of March. And in this case, the acting mayor would have some starting advantage in the special elections. And his main competitor, Mikhail Dobkin, would have to build his election campaign from scratch.
What does this delay give Terekhov?
On the one hand, during these six months you can mess up, show up “in all its glory,” and turn the townspeople against you. The scandalous February session of the City Council showed how Terekhov can easily lose points. She was remembered, first of all, for the inappropriate behavior of the acting mayor. Terekhov openly played along with the Nazis who came from the street and attacked opposition deputies in the session hall.
On the other hand, Terekhov may be counting on the fact that in six months he will become quite familiar with the role of acting. mayor: they will get used to it, old unfulfilled promises will be forgotten, new ones will not yet have time to acquire the burden of responsibility.
For example, back in the winter he loudly promised that the tariff increase would not affect Kharkov. And if at the March elections Kharkov residents would have seen recent payments that brought significant financial losses, then a summer break in the heating season could smooth out these unpleasant sensations. The resumption of astronomical payments for heat will occur in November. And by that time, after the end of the heating season, people may have somewhat forgotten how much heat from the current government costs them, and soften their complaints against the acting governor. mayor...
This is just one of the likely benefits that the postponement of elections to October 31 promises Terekhov. The main advantages can be associated with the establishment of new schemes for using administrative resources.
Let's say, on the eve of March 8, Terekhov's congratulatory billboards hinted to the city that... O. the mayor has no competition in the right to use advertising space.
There was information that the acting The mayor ordered the dismantling of all Dobkin advertising.
And the Nazis from the Freikorps immediately joined the fight, boasting that they had doused one of Dobkin’s billboards with paint.
Perhaps the only place where Mikhail Dobkin’s billboard felt comfortable this month was the Barabashovo shopping center. Dobkin from the billboard assures his fellow countrymen: “Let’s continue what we started together.” Moreover, it is adjacent to several congratulatory billboards of People’s Deputy Alexander Feldman (OPZZH), who, in fact, owns the market.
Here Kharkov residents are given the opportunity to be at a loss. With whom does Dobkin intend to continue what he started? With Kharkov residents? With Feldman? Or does this mean everything that Dobkin started with Kernes?
All versions, even mutually exclusive ones, have the right to exist.
Dobkin really has much more in common with Kernes than Terekhov does with Kernes. And a completely left-wing person for Kharkov is businessman Pavel Fuks, who started a marauding two-step around the mayor’s chair. Its essence was cynically simple: as a result of local elections held under the auspices of Kernes, to “outvote” Terekhov.
Of course, Mikhail Dobkin has more moral rights to talk about the continuation of the work started together with Gennady Kernes than the fuchs and Terekhovs combined.
But let's look at the neighboring billboards again. Is an alliance between Dobkin and Feldman, who was at odds with Kernes over the “housing issue” related to the Barabashovo market, possible?
This union is logical. Dobkin did not quarrel with Feldman. And Terekhov announced his intentions to shake up the Barabashovo shopping center “in favor of the city.” Dobkin harshly commented on the draft decisions on land issues on the market prepared in the Kharkov City Council. He called it an attempt at a raider takeover of the Barabashovo shopping center.
The alliance with Feldman adds to Dobkin’s collection the votes of the people’s deputy’s supporters in the majority constituency. But those entrepreneurs from Barabashovo who had a long conflict with Feldman may be skeptical about this.
Today, Dobkin’s main problem is to increase his presence in the city. The question is not only about the main advertising spaces abundantly used by Terekhov. It is important what strategies will be chosen by Dobkin, who has stated many times that he is beyond competition in future elections.
If you drive along the streets of Kharkov, then outwardly everything looks as if the city is “cleaning itself up near Terekhov” (with the exception of the mentioned advertising spaces on “Barabashovo” with portraits of Dobkin and Feldman). If you spend several days watching programs from Akhmetov’s channel “Ukraine 24,” you get the impression that Dobkin has already won the future elections.
In both cases, impressions are deceptive. Administrative resources, generously used by Terekhov in one snout, are not yet a guarantee of victory. The same can be said about Dobkin’s permanent residence on the Akhmetov Canal. Passing like a pennant of honor from one presenter to another, it is already beginning to repeat itself. Even when important and correct things are said, their frequent repetitions devalue what was said.
Dobkin should remember his first parliamentary experience, when he walked around the courtyards and houses in his majority constituency and communicated with Kharkov residents in person. In the meantime, he communicates live mainly with the presenter Natasha Vlashchenko. And this spectacle, frankly speaking, is not for everyone. In some cases, Vlashchenko has a bad effect on Dobkin.
For example, in her program “Hard with Vlashchenko” he tried to convey the idea of Kernes’s last entourage: “Fuchs was nowhere to be found. He appeared when Gena was no longer physically independent. Then he took him into his cocoon, became his best friend and began to come up with different stories, which over time he himself believed.”
This is an important message that dots the i's in the story of last year's local elections, illness and death of Kernes. It is clear that businessman Pavel Fuks (who allegedly also wrote an “opera” about Dobkin that he was the founder of the KhNR) is a strong irritant for Mikhail Markovich. Dobkin gives harsh assessments to Terekhov and Fuchs. Looks like a strong man in front of us...
But this is preceded by Dobkin’s memory of his own participation in the 2014 presidential election. He tells how he went with Kernes to Dnepropetrovsk to see Kolomoisky and for some reason consulted... He approved Dobkin’s participation in the presidential campaign: there is no chance of winning, but at least you can protect yourself from criminal prosecution by the new government. According to Mikhail Markovich, the oligarch told him that “this is an entrance ticket to the major political league.”
And here the question arises: why is Dobkin telling this? I expected to hear his own comments: that he was already “in the top political league” just before the 2014 presidential elections. The governor of the Kharkov region was perceived by many as a political heavyweight during the Maidan. And he just lost this weight during his participation in the presidential elections. And it was important for Kolomoisky to make sure that Dobkin did not take the path of resistance to the regime, but the path of “correction.” That is, I am ready to be, if not servile, then simply a moderate oppositionist.
Dobkin is too focused on getting Natasha Vlashchenko interested or liked. And he forgets about the main thing: the reaction of the majority of Kharkov residents to these stories.
Another logical question arises: now Mikhail Markovich, as a regular on the Akhmetov channel, will also need a meeting with the oligarch (now different) before the mayoral elections? Does he need the approval of Rinat Leonidovich - or will he get lost without it?
By the way, Dobkin’s interview in the “Snow Avalanche” program on Snezhana Egorova’s YouTube channel turned out to be much more interesting than conversations with the inflated Vlaschenko on the Ukraine 24 channel.
Egorova asks whether he regrets withdrawing his candidacy for the Kharkov elections in the fall of 2020. Dobkin answers frankly. He gives a harsh assessment of the beneficiaries of the local elections in Kharkov: “I regret it, not because I withdrew from the elections, but because I trusted swindlers and swindlers. I knew that these were swindlers and scammers. But it seemed to me that there are things where you can’t use your abilities in terms of scams and fraud.”
Mikhail Markovich deciphers this statement: they (Terekhov, Fuchs and the company) treated Kernes as a certain asset, “they sold him with his authority in big politics, exchanged him for other benefits.”
If Dobkin seriously intends not only to expose this political scam, but also to put an end to it, then he needs to go to the people of Kharkov. It’s not in Natasha Vlashchenko’s program to remember the table setting at dinner at Kolomoisky’s, but to be interested in what the arithmetic average Kharkov family can afford.
Apparently, Dobkin has already started working “in the fields”, announcing the creation of a social movement against illegal deforestation in the Kharkov region. There must be many such steps and actions if the former mayor and governor expects to defeat political swindlers and swindlers.
English version :: Read in English: Marauders and swindlers, or What awaits Dobkin in the Kharkiv elections