Kolomoisky founds new party and parliamentary faction

Ukrainian oligarch and billionaire, governor of Dnepropetrovsk Region Igor Kolomoisky is going to found a new parliamentary group and party that will host several MPs from the Economic Development faction that was previously dissolved without explaining the reason. Several non-partisan MPs from Kharkov will also become members of the new group, reports Vesti.ua.

For the time being, the group is planning to be in opposition, while it will not coordinate its actions with the Opposition Bloc. As one of members of the future group, Anton Yatsenko, said, the new party will be called Revival. According to Yatsenko, 25 MPs will become mebers of the group. Co-chairs of the group will be Vitali Khomutynnik and Valery Pisarenko.

Late on March 5, the Economic Development group members to which were 19 MPs announced its dissolution without citing any reasons. The group was established last November. Its chair was non-partisan Vitali Khomutynnik, who is close to Igor Kolomoisky.

As Vesti.ua report, political analyst Kost Bondarenko believes that the new party founders see as their task taking votes away from the Opposition Bloc in southeastern Ukraine at next elections. “As hardly anybody doubts that together with the local elections this fall we will have a parliamentary campaign, too, he [Kolomoisky] establishes a party for the southeast of the country. Voters there dislike Kolomoisky and vote for the Opposition Bloc even in Dnepropetrovsk Region. The minimal task for the new party is to take away votes from the Opposition Bloc. Simultaneously, its task is to be a power lever for Kolomoisky in the decision-making process,” Bondarenko explains.

Key “shareholders” in the Opposition Bloc are Kolomoisky’s rivals – former head of the presidential administration under Viktor Yanukovych Viktor Levochkin, billionaires Viktor Pinchuk and Rinat Akhmetov. The Opposition Bloc has 40 members, mostly from the former Regions Party.

Political analyst Vladimir Fesenko says that Kolomoisky is engaged not in a political but in a personal war. “His task is to deal with the Krivoy Rog clan, which is Akhmetov’s stronghold in Dnepropetrovsk Region. But the matter is that by waging new wars he raises up enemies. The more enemies he has, the lower are his chances to win,” says Fesenko.