Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People party unveils candidates for parliament

Servant of the People (Sluga Narodu in Ukrainian), President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s political party, revealed on June 9 its party list for the upcoming parliamentary elections, scheduled for July 21.

The list features members of Zelenskiy’s presidential campaign, athletes, activists and the head of 1+1 television channel. 

Servant of the People is the name of a television series in which Zelenskiy, who was a comedic actor before becoming president, portrayed a schoolteacher elected president. Zelenskiy was elected president on April 21 after receiving 73 percent of the popular vote.

Zelenskiy, opening the party’s first convention in Kyiv’s Botanical Garden, said that the party’s list features people from all over the country who passed through an online selection process. 

The party’s top-10 candidates are:

1. Dmytro Razumkov, Zelenskiy’s main political consultant and an outspoken member of his presidential campaign.
2. Ruslan Stefanchuk, former professor and current presidential representative in parliament.
3. Iryna Venedyktova, a lawyer and Zelenskiy’s advisor on legal matters.
4. David Arakhamia, businessman known for supporting the army from 2014, briefly serving as head of procurement to the defense ministry.
5. Halyna Yanchenko, head of the supervisory board of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau.
6. Mykhailo Federov, took part in Zelenskiy’s presidential campaign, oversaw social networks and digital strategies.
7. Oleksandr Kornyienko, head of the party’s election campaign.
8. Anastasia Krasnosylska, activist and former member of the Anti-Corruption Action Centre.
9. Oleksandr Tkachenko, executive director of the 1+1 media group, on which most shows either produced or featuring Zelenskiy aired.
10. Zhan Beleniuk, world champion and Olympic silver medalist in Greco-Roman wrestling.

The party list will also include Andriy Gerus, current presidential representative in the Cabinet of Ministers, an outspoken energy expert and critic of the former President Petro Poroshenko’s energy policies.

Servant of the People also revealed its candidates for the single-member constituencies. Among them are Oleksandr Dubinskyi, host of 1+1 television channel program Hroshy, who will run through a single-member constituency in Kyiv Oblast and Yuriy Koryavchenko, member of the 95 Kvartal comedy show and better known by his stage name Yuzik, will run in Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of Zelenskiy, 400 kilometers south of Kyiv.

According to the most recent poll conducted by Ukrainian pollsters Rating Group, Servant of the People is currently supported by 48.5 percent of those ready to vote in the July 21 snap elections.

The elections will be conducted according to a mixed system in which 225 lawmakers will be elected from party lists through a nationwide constituency with a 5 percent threshold. The other 225 will be elected through single-member constituencies, using the first-past-the-post voting system.