The Servant of the People has the most assistants in the 9th convocation of the Verkhovna Rada. And the non-factional parties have the fewest subordinates. Viktor Chornyi from the Platform for Life and Peace has engaged the most consultants among all current MPs - 54 people. Petro Poroshenko of the European Solidarity party has zero assistants. This is stated in a new study by analysts of the R&D center YouControl, reports UNN.
Details
Using data from the official portal of the Rada, analysts collected data on 6 thousand current and former assistants of 401 MPs of the 9th convocation as of July 2024. It is noted that this number of consultants is almost half as many as that of the MPs of the 8th convocation - 422 MPs had 10 thousand assistants.
On average, there are reportedly 15 assistants per MP today. In the current parliament, there are 3980 men (66%) versus 2047 women (34%) among the consultants to MPs. 72% work on a voluntary basis and only 28% are paid.
14 people cooperated with MPs during six consecutive convocations of the Rada (4th-9th convocations). During the 9th convocation, they communicated with several MPs who could represent different political forces.
For example, Kseniia Loboda helps non-partisan Yulia Svitlychna and a member of the Servant of the People faction, Serhii Demchenko. She was an assistant to MPs of the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th convocations. In particular, Oleksii Kunchenko, Serhii Moshak and Taisiia Povalii of the Party of Regions.
Рада не пішла на канікули, а працює в режимі єдиного засідання - Стефанчук24.07.24, 11:09
Viktor Chornyi from the “Platform for Life and Peace” group engaged the most assistants among all current MPs - 54 people (50 people on a voluntary basis and 4 on a paid basis). The second place in terms of the number of assistants was taken by Svyatoslav Yurash, MP from “Servant of the People” , who had 53 consultants during the entire convocation period. This is the largest number of consultants in the faction, analysts said.
Among the former assistants of Oleksandr Merezhko from the Servants is lawyer Pavlo Kuftyrev. “In their investigation , Bigus.Info wrote that Kuftyrev was one of the visitors to MP Mykola Tyshchenko's Velour during the covid quarantine. They also cited media reports that in the 2000s, Kuftyrev worked closely with the Kiperman family of businessmen close to oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky. In addition, he was an assistant to several other MPs in other convocations: Kostyantyn Yarynich (Petro Poroshenko Bloc) in the 8th convocation, Valeriy Kharlim (Party of Regions) in the 6th convocation, and Serhiy Pobedov (SDPU (o)) in the 4th convocation.
MP Oleksandr Feldman from “Restoration of Ukraine” was assisted by 49 people (43 on a voluntary basis and 6 on a paid basis) in his legislative work. His colleague from the deputy group, Vadym Stolar, engaged 11 assistants. С
Bohdan Torokhtii is the leader in terms of the number of assistants in the Party for the Future - 45 (32 people on a voluntary basis and 13 on a paid basis). Businessman Akshyn Yusifov is an assistant to MP Torokhtiia and is mentioned in a media investigation into abuses during the tender for the development of project documentation for the construction of an airport in Zakarpattia.
Valeriy Dubil, a deputy from Batkivshchyna , had 37 people in his team (29 on a voluntary basis and 8 on a paid basis). The deputy head of this parliamentary faction, Serhiy Sobolev, had 35 assistants.
Robert Horvat and Serhiy Shakhov had 33 assistants each in the DOVIRA parliamentary group. Shakhov's assistant is Mykola Sambozhuk. An investigation by the media reports an attempt to monopolize the market of alert systems, where MP Serhiy Shakhov is allegedly pushing a company associated with his advisor (Mykola Sambozhuk), possibly a Russian citizen, through ministries and other government agencies, analysts say.
In European Solidarity, Mykhailo Bondar has the most consultants - 31 assistants.
Solomiya Bobrovska, a member of the GOLOS faction in the Verkhovna Rada, had 28 assistants. Her colleague from the faction, Kira Rudyk, worked with 15 people, including her assistant Natalia Delieva, the head of the Odesa regional territorial organization of the GOLOS political party.
Among the non-factional MPs, Mykola Tyshchenko has the most assistants - 27 people (23 on a voluntary basis and 4 on a paid basis). In addition, three of his consultants have been featured in journalistic investigations. Evelina Andrievska, his current assistant under an employment contract, and 2 former ones - Yulia Zahynay and Oleksandr Sitak. All three are mentioned in the material of “Bigus.Info” as persons who were on the list of candidates for deputies to the Kyiv City Council from the “Servant of the People” party. In particular, it is said that Evelina Andrievska and Yulia Zahynay worked in Tyshchenko's restaurant group, and Oleksandr Sitak was his business partner. Sitak is a member of Svit Ltd, whose member until June 2024 was Alla Baranovska, Mykola Tyshchenko's former wife.