34-year-old Rivne Mayor Oleksandr Tretyak (pictured, center, with members of his municipal team) was elected in late 2020 in a vote that reflected a strong local appetite for political change in the western Ukrainian city.
In November 2020, Rivne residents voted for a dramatic change in the local status quo by electing 34-year-old Oleksandr Tretyak as their new mayor. Despite polls showing him starting the election campaign in September with support levels of just 1.2%, the charismatic candidate managed to score an impressive victory.
Tretyak was the only candidate from former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko’s European Solidarity party to be elected mayor of a regional capital anywhere in Ukraine during the country’s late 2020 local elections. Supporters say he prevailed because he presented a credible vision of how to change the political climate and ensure the future of Rivne as a truly European city.
Winning an election against the odds is a significant feat, but it doesn’t answer the larger question of “can he govern?”
During his first 100 days in office, one of the young mayor’s priorities has been changing the local leadership. “People are policy” as the saying goes, and Tretyak immediately replaced all the city’s deputy mayors, some of whom had served for more than a decade.
Next, he formed a broad coalition to govern the city. This coalition includes his own European Solidarity party, along with Holos party and Rivne Together, a local party led by his main election opponent. Tretyak did not stop at including his main opponents in the new city coalition; he also tapped his mayoral opponent to serve as secretary of the city council, a position which yields much power at the local level in Ukrainian politics.
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With the coronavirus pandemic showing no signs of abating, Rivne’s new mayor has already kept his election promise to establish a local oxygen generation station, which plays a crucial role in saving the lives of thousands of COVID-19 patients. Not only is the oxygen generation station one of the largest in the country, but it was established through coordination with the Rivne branch of the National Health Service of Ukraine. In other words, Tretyak appears to have succeeded in identifying practical solutions to maximize government efficiencies while using existing resources.
Until recently, the city was paying up to one million hryvnas per month to bring oxygen supplies from Lviv. This meant putting itself at the mercy of unpredictable roads, transportation problems, and bad winter weather. Meanwhile, further steps are being taken to improve local healthcare, ranging from creating a regional healthcare cluster to making Rivne one of Ukraine’s organ transplant centers.
Improving efficiencies in local government based on best practices is another area of change that the new mayor is attempting to bring to the city. Prior to Tretyak’s election, Rivne had been one of the few remaining Ukrainian oblast centers where separate city departments had yet to be established. Tretyak has since begun the modernization of city services through the introduction of designated departments to systematize the performance of municipal services.
Additionally, the mayor has created an advisory group of key experts in a range of different fields. To prevent corruption, Tretyak is working to adopt the best practices of other Ukrainian cities to install an anti-corruption unit which monitors city expenditures and identifies risks before they are allowed to take root. None of this is rocket science, but it is long overdue in this city of 250,000 residents close to Ukraine’s EU border.
Local government is not always about long-term strategies, of course. When a major snowstorm was forecast in February, Tretyak called an emergency Sunday meeting of key city officials to pull together available resources in order to ensure that the streets were cleared and navigable for traffic the following morning. The move contrasted sharply with parallel developments in Kyiv, which struggled with the heavy snowfall for days, and neighboring Lviv, where media praised the work of the Rivne mayor as a model of effective local government.
Tretyak’s first 100 days in office could well be summed up by the three key themes of “decentralization, dialog, and digitization.” Whether its yielding powers to newly created departments, engaging in dialog with experts and ordinary citizens alike, or forming a working group to digitize city services, Tretyak’s supporters say the new mayor is working hard to underline his democratic credentials.
In addition to revitalizing local services and boosting engagement with Rivne residents, Rivne’s new mayor also hopes to open up the city to the rest of Ukraine. Instead of being known primarily as a convenient stop-off on the route between Kyiv and Lviv, he wants Rivne to become a place all Ukrainians are eager to visit. Initially, his message is that the paradigm has changed and Rivne is now firmly on the path towards becoming a modern European city.
This is a potentially attractive message for Ukraine’s international partners and investors. If the city’s transformation gains ground, they may wish to explore local opportunities in more detail. Rivne already boasts attractive logistical connections to Kyiv and Lviv along with close proximity to the EU, while Ukraine’s post-2014 decentralization reforms mean that local government has a larger role than ever to play in many of the issues that matter most to investors.
At a time when Ukrainian audiences are once again becoming disillusioned with the direction of national politics, ambitious young local officials like Oleksandr Tretyak currently have an opportunity to make a name for themselves far away from the toxic political climate of Kyiv. If he is able to maintain the pace of his first 100 days, Rivne’s new mayor could be one to watch.
Brian Mefford is the Director of Wooden Horse Strategies, LLC, a governmental-relations and strategic communications firm based in Kyiv, Ukraine. He is a Senior Nonresident Fellow at the Atlantic Council.
Kremlin TV chief Margarita Simonyan called on Russia to annex eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region during a recent high-profile forum that signaled an escalation in Moscow’s seven-year hybrid war against Ukraine.
UkraineAlert by Alvydas Medalinskas
The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.
UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.
The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MONTREAL – NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he will not be taking advice from Pierre Poilievre after the Conservative leader challenged him to bring down government.
“I say directly to Pierre Poilievre: I’m not going to listen to you,” said Singh on Wednesday, accusing Poilievre of wanting to take away dental-care coverage from Canadians, among other things.
“I’m not going to listen to your advice. You want to destroy people’s lives, I want to build up a brighter future.”
Earlier in the day, Poilievre challenged Singh to commit to voting non-confidence in the government, saying his party will force a vote in the House of Commons “at the earliest possibly opportunity.”
“I’m asking Jagmeet Singh and the NDP to commit unequivocally before Monday’s byelections: will they vote non-confidence to bring down the costly coalition and trigger a carbon tax election, or will Jagmeet Singh sell out Canadians again?” Poilievre said.
“It’s put up or shut up time for the NDP.”
While Singh rejected the idea he would ever listen to Poilievre, he did not say how the NDP would vote on a non-confidence motion.
“I’ve said on any vote, we’re going to look at the vote and we’ll make our decision. I’m not going to say our decision ahead of time,” he said.
Singh’s top adviser said on Tuesday the NDP leader is not particularly eager to trigger an election, even as the Conservatives challenge him to do just that.
Anne McGrath, Singh’s principal secretary, says there will be more volatility in Parliament and the odds of an early election have risen.
“I don’t think he is anxious to launch one, or chomping at the bit to have one, but it can happen,” she said in an interview.
New Democrat MPs are in a second day of meetings in Montreal as they nail down a plan for how to navigate the minority Parliament this fall.
The caucus retreat comes one week after Singh announced the party has left the supply-and-confidence agreement with the governing Liberals.
It’s also taking place in the very city where New Democrats are hoping to pick up a seat on Monday, when voters go to the polls in Montreal’s LaSalle—Émard—Verdun. A second byelection is being held that day in the Winnipeg riding of Elmwood—Transcona, where the NDP is hoping to hold onto a seat the Conservatives are also vying for.
While New Democrats are seeking to distance themselves from the Liberals, they don’t appear ready to trigger a general election.
Singh signalled on Tuesday that he will have more to say Wednesday about the party’s strategy for the upcoming sitting.
He is hoping to convince Canadians that his party can defeat the federal Conservatives, who have been riding high in the polls over the last year.
Singh has attacked Poilievre as someone who would bring back Harper-style cuts to programs that Canadians rely on, including the national dental-care program that was part of the supply-and-confidence agreement.
The Canadian Press has asked Poilievre’s office whether the Conservative leader intends to keep the program in place, if he forms government after the next election.
With the return of Parliament just days away, the NDP is also keeping in mind how other parties will look to capitalize on the new makeup of the House of Commons.
The Bloc Québécois has already indicated that it’s written up a list of demands for the Liberals in exchange for support on votes.
The next federal election must take place by October 2025 at the latest.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante is defending her decision to turn off comments on her social media accounts — with an announcement on social media.
She posted screenshots to X this morning of vulgar names she’s been called on the platform, and says comments on her posts for months have been dominated by insults, to the point that she decided to block them.
Montreal’s Opposition leader and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association have criticized Plante for limiting freedom of expression by restricting comments on her X and Instagram accounts.
They say elected officials who use social media should be willing to hear from constituents on those platforms.
However, Plante says some people may believe there is a fundamental right to call someone offensive names and to normalize violence online, but she disagrees.
Her statement on X is closed to comments.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
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