New Player Shakes Up Ukraine Before Sunday Vote

October 26, 2012

Vitaly Klitschko stands two meters tall and punches so hard they call him "Dr. Ironfist."

Now the World Boxing Council's reigning heavyweight champion is fighting a new battle, Ukraine's parliamentary elections.

On Sunday, Ukrainians vote for an entirely new 450-member parliament. Klitschko has come back from Germany to run for parliament, and to pull this massive nation of 44 million people toward Europe.

"We are fighting for what is right," he told a rally audience in Kyiv on Thursday night. "We are fighting for ideas - and they are fighting for money. And that is why I'm confident that we can build a normal state. The Poles, Czechs, Hungarians and the Georgians could do it. We are Ukrainians, and we can do it too."

Klitschko campaigns against the corruption that many people believe has hobbled Ukraine's growth since it gained independence 21 years ago. Kazakhstan, with barely one-third of Ukraine's population, now has a bigger economy.

Klitschko adds "punch"

Klitschko's party is called UDAR, Russian for punch. Klitschko and Udar are not expected to win by a knockout. But his party has soared in opinion polls to second place, displacing the coalition of Yulia Tymoshenko, the braided diva of the opposition.

But Tymoshenko cannot run. She is in jail, serving a seven-year jail term for abuse of office when she was prime minister.