Vitali Klitschko - Political Career

Political Career

Klitschko began campaigning for Mayor of Kiev shortly after his retirement in 2005. He lost the 2006 mayoral election to Leonid Chernovetskyi but placed second with 26% of the vote, ahead of the incumbent Oleksandr Omelchenko Klitschko campaigned on an anti-corruption platform and lead the bloc "Civic party" PORA-ROP (the parties PORA and Reforms and Order Party) in the simultaneously held local elections for the Kiev City Council. Analysts stated his relatively late entry into the campaign might have cost him votes. Still, Klitschko was elected as a people's deputy to the Kiev City Council since "Civic party" PORA-ROP won 14 seats in the 2006 election. In the May 2008 Kiev local election, he ran again and won 18% of the vote. Klitschko simultaneously led the Vitaliy Klychko Bloc that won 10.61% of the votes and 15 seats and again he was elected into the Kiev City Council. His campaign hired Rudy Giuliani as a consultant for the campaign. In 2008 he was also appointed to the Ukrainian delegation of the Congress of the Council of Europe.

Klitschko became the leader of the political party UDAR of Vitaliy Klychko in April 2010. During the 2010 Ukrainian local elections, the party won representatives in (Ukrainian) municipalities and Oblast Councils (regional parliaments).

In October 2011, Klitschko announced that he would compete in the 2012 Kiev mayoral election.

During the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election Klitschko was elected (he was top candidate on UDAR's party list) into the Ukrainian parliament; when his party won 40 seats.