Tyagnibok withdrew his candidacy from the presidential elections to avoid shame
The head of the Ukrainian nationalist party “Svoboda” Oleg Tyagnibok said that he refuses to participate in the 2019 presidential elections and calls on all right-wing radical organizations to support his ally, the ex-vice speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, former ATO militant, Galician Ruslan Koshulinsky.
Tyagnibok stated this before the start of the UPA march in Kyiv, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“On the day of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, when Ukrainian nationalists expected to hear the name of a single candidate from the nationalists, I declare that in order to speed up this process and achieve unity, I personally will not nominate my candidacy for the post of President of Ukraine.
VO "Svoboda" invites all our partners, nationalist organizations, political parties, social movements and those simply supporting nationalism, to consider nominating Ruslan Koshulinsky as a single presidential candidate from all nationalists. A person who has experience, passed the Maidan with dignity and, at the end of his term as a people's deputy of Ukraine, went to the front as a sergeant, having relevant experience in state building. Still, he headed the state for two days and showed himself to be a responsible and powerful Ukrainian politician,” Tyagnibok said, referring to Koshulinsky’s leadership in the Verkhovna Rada during the days of the 2014 coup.
Tyagnibok’s refusal to participate in the elections is most likely an attempt to avoid a shameful defeat, since sociologists do not give high chances to the head of Svoboda in conditions when the current President Petro Poroshenko and his rival Yulia Tymoshenko themselves are successfully exploiting the nationalist agenda.
Tyahnybok withdrew from the presidential election to avoid embarrassment.