Translated by Ollie Richardson & Angelina Siard

18:30:03
14/02/2019

ria.ru

The upcoming presidential elections in Ukraine aren’t elections for the future leader of the country, but are an event for choosing the “main oligarch”, considers the director of the International Institute of the Newest States Aleksey Martynov.

Presidential elections will take place in Ukraine on March 31st. In total 44 candidates were registered. The electoral campaign started on December 31st, and the promotion of presidential candidates and the submission of documents to the Central Election Commission for their registration started on the same day. The Commission finished the reception of candidate registration documents on February 3rd, and on February 8th declared a complete list of candidates.

“It seems to me that all of us try to discuss the presidential election in Ukraine. In my opinion, this event, the campaign that has formally already started, (the event) planned for March 31st, is not a presidential election. It is not a presidential election, it is fight and an election for the post of the main oligarch in Ukraine”

said Martynov during a round table at MIA “Russia Today”

“Today the main oligarch of Ukraine is (the president Petro) Poroshenko. He managed this in different ways, to move from the category of ‘oligarch lite’ into such a fully-fledged, real oligarch, having significantly pushed many others away. Ukraine, as is known, is such an oligarchical formation, thus this is extremely important,” added the expert. In his opinion, today in Ukraine there is an imitation of elections, which is connected to the fight between oligarchs for cash flows.

“Poroshenko (the main oligarch) tries to defend this post, and (the Ukrainian businessman Igor) Kolomoisky tries to challenge this post. That’s all. What elections?”

added Martynov

Earlier it was reported that the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky may be connected to the candidates Yuliya Tymoshenko and Vladimir Zelensky.

“In the conditions of this ‘festival’ democracy, which was imparted to Ukraine in the 1990’s, in its development today, in addition to this oligarchical system – there isn’t any political struggle in Ukraine. The names change, the wording is cynically changed, the subscript and something else, but in reality it is as I described. It looks like that,” said the expert.

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