Mayor of Kiev, official title Head of Kiev City is elected by popular vote city official who serves as a head of the Kiev city state administration and a chairperson the Kiev City Council. Unofficially it is also known and widely used as Mayor of Kiev. The mayor is elected for the term of four years. Current mayor Vitali Klitschko was sworn in on 5 June 2014. Klitschko had won the 25 May 2014 Kiev mayoral elections with almost 57% of the votes.
Elections of mayor of Kiev
In March of 1990 it was officially announced about the "First Truly Democratic" elections. Dmytro Tabachnyk and Mikhail Pogrebinsky in interview to Segodnya claimed that those were truly the most honest elections. Those elections was taking place along the 1990 Ukrainian Supreme Soviet election. Following a political crisis of 1993–94, there were held snap elections for president, parliament as well as local elections. According to the Kiev City Electoral Commission, Chernovetsky won in 2006 31.83% of the popular vote, Vitali Klitschko placed second with 23.7%, and incumbent Oleksandr Omelchenko placed third with 21.2%. As of December 2006, the rating of Chernovetsky decreased to 8%. That is mostly due to his betrayal of those who elected him, most notably through his increasing of the price of household services by 340%. Leonid Chernovetskyi won another term as Mayor of Kiev with 38% of the vote in the May 25, 2008 snap local election, called on by the Verkhovna Rada in March. Since the resignation of Chernovetsky in July 2012, the Kiev City Council Secretary and Deputy Mayor :uk:Герега Галина Федорівна|Halyna Hereha was the acting Mayor of Kiev. In the 2014 Kiev local election Vitali Klitschko won the election for mayor of Kiev with almost 57% of the votes. Klitschko was sworn in as mayor on 5 June 2014. The last Kiev local election took place on 25 October 2015. A second round of Mayoral elections was held on 15 November 2015 between Klitschko and Boryslav Bereza after incumbent Mayor Klitschko scored 40.5% of the vote and Bereza 8.8% in the first round. Klitschko won this second round with 66.5%; Bereza gained 33.51% of the votes. The 2020 Kiev local election is set for 25 October 2020.
Dualism of authority in Kiev
An October 2010 Presidential decree relieved mayor of Kiev Leonid Chernovetsky of the office of Head of Kiev City Administration, while still preserving the post of mayor. This led to Chernovetsky being deprived of any official decision-making role and most power in the capital was handed over to the Head of Kiev City Administration. At that time that was Oleksandr Popov who was appointed by President Viktor Yanukovych on 16 November 2010. Before these amendments, the elected mayor of the Kiev City Council was automatically appointed also as head of the Kiev City City Administration. Chernovetsky was not seen in Kiev for several months after Popov's appointment, but returned to the public eye in early 2011. Among the city residents of Kiev, Chernovetskyi had become extremely unpopular. Chernovetsky tendered his resignation on 1 June 2012. The City Council decided on 12 July 2012 that Halyna Hereha would temporarily act as the mayor of the capital city. A petition to the Ukrainian Parliament on holding an early mayoral election in the city was sent. But as of January 2013 the Ukrainian Parliament had set no date for these elections. Since 25 June 2014 the post of mayor of Kiev and Head of Kiev City Administration are held by the same person again. This person is Vitali Klitschko who was sworn in as mayor on 5 June 2014 and who was appointed Head of Kiev City Administration by Ukrainian PresidentPetro Poroshenko on 25 June 2014.
