The work of the voters themselves

How the success of the party "Self -help"

The main sensation of the elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine was the newly created party “Self -help”, led by Lviv mayor Andrei Sadov. Having taken third place, she is now participating in negotiations on the creation of a government coalition. How success was forged - The New Times found out first -hand

"Take and do it!" - called by the election poster of the mayor of Lviv Andrei Sadovoy, a well -known enemy of the regime Yanukovych

Photo: Gleb Garinich/Reuters

Multi -colored smokes enveloped the factory district of Zaporozhye, a cold wind blew, a light smell of sulfur stood in the air - an inevitable satellite of metallurgical production. Against the backdrop of this harsh landscape of the voice of Alexei Skrypnik and Yaroslav Markevich, who performed at the election rally in front of the employees of the Fish packaging enterprise, as if it were a conference on startups in Palo Alto, California. No flirting, no condescension to the educational level and political culture of the inhabitants of one of the most - at least external cities in Ukraine.

Antipopolists

Our meeting took place three days before the parliamentary elections in Ukraine on October 26. In the list of candidates from “self -help”, Skrypnik was three at number three, and Markevich - at number 14. Both - ITishniks living in different parts of the country: Skrypnik in Lviv, Markevich - in Kharkov. Now both of them will have to move to Kyiv to work in the Rada.

“Self -help” to his enterprise in Zaporozhye was called by his general director Dmitry Bobrov, a former military pilot, a veteran of Afghanistan and Angola, who was born and lived half a life in Russia. The February Revolution in Kyiv changed the life of the enterprise radically and simply, completely relying the “corruption tax”, which had to pay the “watchman” from Yanukovych - a person who did not occupy any official posts, but controlled the entire region. Bobrov wants him to never pay again. Therefore, he supports one of the main slogans of “self -help” - lustration - and believes that in the native field you can safely get rid of 70 % of the current officials. The initiator of the adoption of the law on lustration, Yegor Sobolev also went to Rada from “self -help”. But the choice of Bobrov, first of all, is associated with sympathy personally to the Lviv mayor of the Sadovaya. The main criterion: "He is not a vault."

Sadovy and invited a holipnik to the party, and he was “not a populist” in a square. Speaking to Bobrov’s subordinates, he poured numbers and periodically quoted Kahu Bendukidze, the author of radical institutional reforms in Georgia. The main idea: in order to save the country, it is necessary to solve the problem of the world's largest budget deficit due to a sharp reduction in government spending. These were not at all the words that the residents of Zaporozhye used to hear, who voted in the vast majority on the past electoral workers from the Party of Regions.

“You have not yet heard how we said in the Pension Fund yesterday that we would not raise pensions and that many employees would have to be fired,” Markevich said an hour later, when tired newly made politicians sat down to dinner. At least they will not have to regret their antipolistic statements. In the Zaporizhzhya region, Self -Help gained 8.6 % - not much less than the national average, and more than the “moderate regionals” from “strong Ukraine” Sergei Tigipko.

“Our populism is in the absence of populism,” says Skrypnik. Thinking, he adds: “We are now just very afraid to lie. The people ate populism, especially performed by Julia Vladimirovna (Tymoshenko). ” It becomes easier and easier to talk with Ukrainians as with adults, he confirms.

Nevertheless, the populism in this election was in bulk. “You look at the advertisement of the“ Opposition Bloc ”(the party, which included the former“ regionals ”-shelvesi),” Skrypnik is indignant. - They promise to increase pensions and salaries, compensate for the losses from the fall in the exchange rate. Where will they get the money for this?! " The Opposition Bloc gained the largest number of votes among all parties in the Zaporizhzhya region, but much less than before here was gained by the Party of Regions. In general, the country “Self -help” was significantly ahead of the former “regionals”.

Other populist forces - the “Radical Party” by Oleg Lyashko and the “Fatherland” by Yulia Tymoshenko - performed extremely unsuccessfully. And the nationalists from Freedom did not enter the parliament at all - they are unpleasant, and this is not uncommon among the intelligent Lviv.

However, the liberal populism is also not very close. He does not consider the Georgian model the ideal against ill -conceived privatization and massive deregulation of the market and, despite sympathy for Bendukidze. In the new Rada, he and Markevich are ready to cooperate with everyone in order to achieve specific goals. “In the Rada, there will ultimately be only two parties - good people and assholes,” says Skrypnik.

Battalions ask for brains

The upper part of the “self-help” list consists of those who are called English in English-people who have achieved the result in some symbolic sphere for Ukraine. Skrypnik created one of the largest IT companies in Ukraine, which is entirely oriented to the world market. Her site has neither Ukrainian nor Russian version - only English. The IT industry imprisoned to the Western market is the greatest success of Ukraine over the years of independence, which gives hope that in the country you can create a “smart”, modern economy. “Until 2014, the IT market grew 20-30 % per year. We brought less profit than metallurgy, but almost more than agriculture. Ukrainian ITSHNIKS well understand the world and what shit we are in, ”says Skrypnik.

No other industry in Ukraine has provided such unanimous support to Euromaidan. When the war came, dozens of large and small companies throughout the country began to develop and create high -tech weapons. Kharkov citizen Markevich rushed with the idea of ​​creating Ukrainian drones, but attempts to break through the military bureaucracy were in vain. Then he went to the base of the Donbass battalion, which was just formed. There he met with the now famous battalion commander Semen Semenchenko and presented him with a program to create an air intelligence unit. Semenchenko said: "Do!"

“When the battalion (“ Donbass ”) went to the front, he was the only one in all the Armed Forces of Ukraine was equipped with short and medium -range drones,” says Markevich. The former, as a rule, are used on checkpoints at night. Thermal imagers are installed on them, with the help of which you can find the approach of the enemy. The second is needed to increase the accuracy of artillery strikes.

Markevich went from Donbass for all at the advanced units, advertising the advantages of unmanned intelligence to the commanders. “Arriving in the artillery division, we showed them their target at a distance of 20 km online. They have never seen this before, ”he says. The first drones produced in Ukraine were primitive, but after a few months they could already compete with Russian counterparts who use the separatists.

Other Russians

Markevich is still listed in Donbass, whose commander became the second number in the election list of Self-Help. Semenchenko is a symbolic figure at once in two parameters. Firstly, he created the most famous volunteer battalion in Ukraine. Secondly, he lived in the Crimea and in the Donbass, which makes him a “Russian” face of “self-help”. “I am Russian, but I do not support the Russian world that I saw with my own eyes in the Donbass - built on the blood,” he said when we met near the Kyiv headquarters of “self -help” on the day of the election. He began a conversation with the Moscow correspondent with a proposal to exchange it for prisoners from the battalion. Joking.

“Russia wins at the expense of the information war, as well as bribery and betrayal in our ranks. On the battlefield, she doesn’t win, ”says Semenchenko. He believes that Ukraine would not have lost Crimea and Donbass if it actively acted at the initial stage: “There would be enough special forces platoon in the Donbass. I was inside the captured buildings and saw that people - these were mostly police officers and their relatives - are afraid of punishment. ”

Ukraine, the commander of the Donbass believes, made many mistakes in working with the population of Russian -speaking regions - in particular, in that it concerned the popularization of Ukrainian culture: “This was done not by force, but very clumsy. There were no possibilities for cultural exchange with Western Ukraine. ” But no one is safe from what happened to the country: "If China finds any lever of influence on uneducated people in Russia, it will also lose territory."

On the street near the large SUV, the battalion commander was waiting for his deputy - a Russian citizen who seems to be his call sign - Savva. Former Moscow businessman, he moved to Kyiv in 2003. “At first I was a patriot of Russia and was offended all the time when they spoke unpleasant things about Moscow. But she gradually realized that this country (Ukraine) and its mentality are much closer to me. crests - kinder, ”Savva admits. In the east, he believes, there is a "war of failed rulers against democracy."

People are ahead of power

However, the leader of “self -help” Andrei Sadovy looks at the same question differently. “Although this is called the“ anti-terrorist operation ”, I think historians will call it differently-the Ukrainian-Russian war. It is very difficult to pronounce, but this is true, ”Sadovy told us on the election day. - Ukrainians always expected that from Russia there would be an outstretched hand of friendship, and received a dagger in the back. For the inhabitants of the Center, East and even the West, this has become a real shock. ”

The mayor of Lviv, although he was clearly exhausted after an intensive election campaign, was in a good mood-he had already sent him extremely favorable for “self-help” the results of the ecc there. And they, with a high probability, showed that the Garden Party would participate in the formation of the Kamikadze government, which will have the cost of personal ratings and reputations to draw Ukraine from the abyss. “Bendukidze made us (Ukraine) a diagnosis six months ago - an injury incompatible with life. Emotionally, I agree with such an assessment, but in my soul I remain a big optimist, ”the garden is ironic.

He was the face of the party on the pre-election posters, but despite this, he was in 50th place in the election list, that is, he was clearly not going to go to the Rada. Sadovy himself explains this to "obligations to the inhabitants of Lviv." But among his associates, the point of view is popular: the leader of “self -help” should become the next president of the country.

When we met with Andrei Sadov, he had difficult negotiations ahead with President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk about the formation of the ruling coalition. Whether future partners are ready for tough solutions is a serious issue. “Today, people are ready for reforms, but power is not. The level of consciousness of ordinary people is higher than the level of consciousness of power, ”the garden explained during our meeting.

The main condition for “self -help” for creating a coalition is that the ministers are assigned on a competitive basis, and not by party quotas: “The quota distribution led to a great trouble, because many who came to work in the government in the last wave (after the victory of the Maidan) ... - I would not even appoint them the heads of the housing office.”

Lustration is one of the main slogans of the party, but for the garden, "the benefits, not revenge are important." “Today the question is not to dismiss,” he explains, “but to gain adequate cool people who should also be asked to agree to go to work.” And his personal principle of selection of personnel is as follows: “I always take people who are smarter than me. And I'm learning from them. "