“I only won the respect of my colleagues by fighting,” Yulia Eremenko tells me.
A businesswoman from the southern city of Kherson, Eremenko has seen Ukraine’s local political system from the inside. After helping the Ukrainian army when war broke out in the east of the country in 2014, she ran for city council in a national political party - but didn’t get in. Three years later, when a council member died, it was Eremenko’s turn to join the Kherson council.
Yet other party members tried to “come to an agreement” with Eremenko, she says. In exchange for money, the idea was that Eremenko would refuse to take her seat on the council - as mandated by the original candidate list she ran on - and another party member would take the vacant seat.
