Name Serhiy Ratushniak | ||
 | ||
Full Name Serhiy Mykolayovych Ratushnyak Born 17 February 1961 (age 63)
Uzhgorod, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union ( 1961-02-17 ) Political party Independent, former party's include: Hromada, For United Ukraine, Our Ukraine, Regions of Ukraine, People's Party | ||
Serhiy Mykolayovych Ratushnyak (Ukrainian: Сергій Миколайович Ратушняк; born February 17, 1961) is a former Mayor of Uzhhorod and was a self-nominated candidate in the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election. During the election Ratushnyak received 0.12% of the votes.
Biography
Ratushniak was born in Uzhgorod, Ukrainian SSR. He entered politics in 1994 after creating RIO, a syndicate of enterprises engaged in beverage sales, the production of cured meats and taxi service. Ratushnyak was charged in 2000 with embezzlement, but released after the charges were dropped.
In August 2009, Ratushnyak was alleged to have beaten a female campaigner of fellow presidential candidate, Arseniy Yatseniuk (Front of Change) A criminal case was soon opened against Ratushniak, he was accused of hooliganism, abuse of office and the violation of racial and national equality of citizens, Ratushniak denies the claims. Ratushniak was not previously known to be anti-Semitic. Following his nomination Ratushniak told a local paper that the Jews were to blame for all his country's troubles. Ratushnyak has also called Yatsenyuk "a nasty Jew mason" and an "impudent little Jew" who was "successfully serving the thieves who are in power in Ukraine and is using criminal money to plough ahead towards Ukraine's presidency". The mayor told the Associated Press in a telephone interview: "Is everybody obliged to love Jews and Israel? If I don't like Jews and Israel, does that make me an anti-Semite?".
Late December 2009 Ratushniak called on President Viktor Yushchenko to declare war on Somalia; referring to the taking hostage of Ukrainian sailors by Somali pirates. Ratushniak also believes Americans should atone for killing native Indians before meddling in Ukraine's internal affairs. He also wants to tax the rich, develop nuclear arms and oblige all Ukrainians to learn another foreign language, apart from Russian.
After the first round of the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election where Ratushniak gained only 0.12% of the votes he called upon his voters to support Yulia Tymoshenko against Viktor Yanukovych in the second round: "She will be accepted by the international community and European governments, while every second of those will shut the door in front of Yanukovych."
During the 2010 Mayoral elections Ratushniak ended in second place.
Ratushniak tried to return to national politics in the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election by trying to win, as an independent candidate, single-member districts number 68 (first-past-the-post wins a parliament seat) located in Uzhgorod; but he became second in this district with 19.51% of the votes.
In the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election he stood again as an independent candidate in the same single-member districts as in 2012; but this time he placed fifth with 7.71% of the votes (winner Robert Horvat of Petro Poroshenko Bloc got 21.58%).