Oles Donii | |
|---|---|
Олесь Доній | |
 Donii in 2007 | |
| People's Deputy of Ukraine | |
| In office 23 November 2007 – 27 November 2014 | |
| Preceded by | Constituency established |
| Succeeded by | Yurii Tymoshenko(2014) |
| Constituency |
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| Personal details | |
| Born | Oleksandr Serhiiovych Donii (1969-08-13)13 August 1969 (age 56) |
| Political party | Independent |
| Other political affiliations |
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| Alma mater | Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv |
Oleksandr Serhiiovych Donii (Ukrainian:Олекса́ндр Сергі́йович Доні́й; born 18 August 1969) is a Ukrainian activist and politician who served as aPeople's Deputy of Ukraine from 2007 to 2014, first on the proportional representation list ofOur Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc and later fromUkraine's 88th electoral district inIvano-Frankivsk Oblast. Prior to his election, Donii was one of the leaders of the 1990Revolution on Granite that called for free and fair elections in theUkrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Oleksandr Serhiiovych Donii was born on 18 August 1969, in the Ukrainian capital ofKyiv.[1] He first acquired a sense of Ukrainian identity in school, and he later recounted that he hoped to learn Ukrainian while in university.[2] While he was a student atTaras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in the late 1980s, Donii began organising students in support of UkrainianSoviet dissidents and the1989–1991 Ukrainian revolution.[3]
Following the1990 Ukrainian Supreme Soviet election, Donii was the leader of a series of protests seeking the resignation ofVitaliy Masol.[3] Known as theRevolution on Granite, the protests achieved broad support from Ukrainian society, including dissident leaderViacheslav Chornovil[4] andLeonid Kravchuk, the leader of Ukraine's communists. As the head of the protests'Central Ukrainian branch, Donii was one of three formal leaders of the revolution, alongsideMarkiian Ivashchyshyn [uk] (Western Ukraine, based inLviv) and Oleh Barkov (Eastern Ukraine, based inDniprodzerzhinsk).[5] Donii was appointed deputy chairman of thePeople's Movement of Ukraine in 1990, a role he held until 1991. He was also co-leader of theUkrainian Student Union from 1991 to 1992, and served as head of the Centre for Extreme Politics from 1992 to 1994.[1]
Donii was elected to theKyiv City Council in 1994. He was deputy head of the council's Committee on Humanitarian Issues. Taking an interest in cultural issues, Donii was leader of the Young Ukraine movement, as well asLast Barricade [uk], a movement promoting urban culture.[6] He participated in the 2004Orange Revolution, and by 2005 was head of the electoral committee of theSocialist Party of Ukraine in the westernLviv Oblast. Donii mulled a campaign for theLviv Oblast Council, but ultimately decided to become a candidate forPeople's Deputy of Ukraine from the proportional representation list of the SPU. He was placed 99th on the party's list during the2006 Ukrainian parliamentary election.[7]
During the election campaign, Donii pledged to reform the SPU into a "patriotic centre-left structure",[7] and he credited the2004 Ukrainian presidential election, during which the SPU had gathered a greater portion of the vote than theCommunist Party of Ukraine for the first time in their history, as placing the party as leaders of the Ukrainian left.[8] He was ultimately not elected, as the SPU won only 33 seats, and returned to work as a political scientist. Following the2006 Ukrainian political crisis, in which SPU leaderOleksandr Moroz formed an alliance with theParty of Regions, Donii critically compared him toIvan the Fool.[9]
Donii was again a candidate in the2007 Ukrainian parliamentary election, this time from theOur Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc (NUNS). During the campaign, Donii continued to profess his support for a left-wing Ukrainian nationalist party.[10] He was successfully elected as part of theCivil Movement "People's Self-Defense", which was a member of NUNS, though he was anindependent at the time. He was head of the Verkhovna Rada subcommittee on humanitarian education, science, and information.[1]
Donii expressed support for the establishment of NUNS as an ideological party, rather than one based around the personal appeal of PresidentViktor Yushchenko. He called for members of the bloc who were ideologically close to the Party of Regions to be expelled,[11] and additionally criticised the government for favouringIvan Plyushch as the bloc's candidate forChairman of the Verkhovna Rada rather thanVyacheslav Kyrylenko.[12]
Donii was re-elected as a People's Deputy during the2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election. He was elected inUkraine's 88th electoral district (located in and aroundKolomyia,Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast) as an independent candidate with 43.95% of the vote, defeating six other candidates.[13] He partook inEuromaidan and described himself as affiliated with more radical activists who were suspicious ofPetro Poroshenko, saying "people died [during Euromaidan] so thatRoshen could open a new store".[14]
During a vote on the 2010Kharkiv Pact in the Verkhovna Rada, a significant fight broke out between deputies of NUNS and the Party of Regions. During the fight, Donii was beaten by six Party of Regions deputies. He was hospitalised following the beating, and he demanded that NUNS file a lawsuit against the Party of Regions for assault. NUNS ultimately did not file a lawsuit, something Donii credited in 2021 to a lack of willpower on the bloc's behalf to actually fight the Party of Regions.[15]
During the2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election Donii again ran in the 88th electoral district, but he was defeated byPeople's Front candidateYurii Tymoshenko, who won 29.32% of the vote compared to Donii's 16.00%.[16]
In 2024 Donii criticised PresidentVolodymyr Zelenskyy for having denied thatRussia was planning to invade Ukraine, and additionally claimed that Western nations were preparing to surrender Ukrainian territory to Russia, basing his argument on the evacuation of embassies from Kyiv.[17]
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