KIEV, March 29, /ITAR-TASS/. Ukraine’s former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko has been nominated a candidate for presidency in the May 25 early election by her Batkivshchina (Fatherland) party.
Her nomination took place at a party congress underway here.
“The most important task now is unity of the people,” she said at a congress of her Batkivshchina (Fatherland) party, choosing to say several sentences in the Russian language. “Let’s stop fighting. We need the words and the principles that will infuse the entire country with new energies.
Along with it, she revealed her plans “to wage a personal war on oligarchs”.
Timoshenko believes that Ukraine needs to get integrated in the EU “within the shortest term possible.” “Given the current situation, it’s important to integrate in the Western defense alliances but Ukraine should continue building efficient Armed Forces all the same.”
In the meantime, one of the oligarchs, confectionery business tycoon Pytro Poroshenko has called on Timoshenko to support him as a united candidate for the presidential post.
Poroshenko gave the assurances that Timoshenko would not be a political contender for him.
A similar appeal to Timoshenko was made at the congress of UDAR party, Vitaly Klitschko, who urged the former prime minister to back up Poroshenko.
The oligarch said that even if Timoshenko rejected the offer to support him at the election, it would be necessary to ensure the unity of democratic forces after the election, too.
Most recent public opinion polls taken by the SOCIS Center for Social and Marketing Research, the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, the Reiting sociological group, and the Razumkov Center show that Poroshenko is leading among all the candidates.
Were the election held this Sunday, Poroshenko would likely get 36.2% votes while Timoshenko could hope for only 12%.
Polls also show that 84% Ukrainian citizens plan to go to the polls May 25.
Yulia Timoshenko occupied the post of Prime Minister from February through to September 2005, as well as from December 2007 through to March 2010. She was believed to be one of the richest business people in the early 2000’s and the Forbes Magazine put her on the list of the world’s 100 most powerful women in the world in 2005.
In October 2011, a district court in Kiev sentenced her to seven years in jail on charges of abuse of occupational duties and powers in the process of signing agreements on the price of natural gas with the Russian corporation Gazprom in 2009.
She was freed from jail in February 2014.