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111-750: In the 2014 election, the party won 29 seats predominantly in the Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Kharkiv oblasts. American lobbyist Paul Manafort acted as political consultant for the party. By January 2019 two wings of the party nominated two different candidates for the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election . Yuriy Boyko for the Opposition Platform — For Life alliance and Oleksandr Vilkul for Opposition Bloc — Party of Peace and Development (the recently renamed Industrial Party of Ukraine). Both these two offsprings of Opposition Bloc took part independently of each other in

222-685: A CNN reporter. In the late 1980s, Manafort was criticized for using his connections at HUD to ensure funding for a $ 43 million rehabilitation of dilapidated housing in Seabrook, New Jersey . Manafort's firm received a $ 326,000 fee for its work in getting HUD approval of the grant, largely through personal influence with Deborah Gore Dean , an executive assistant to former HUD Secretary Samuel Pierce . Manafort's involvement in Ukraine can be traced to 2003, when Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska hired Dole, Manafort's prior campaign candidate, to lobby

333-643: A NATO member . In the war in Donbas the party advocated to end the conflict by peaceful means and by negotiating with Russia and with the leaders of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic . The party rejects the March 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia and wants "peace in united Ukraine within the borders of 1991 ". The party support Ukrainian's post- Maidan status as

444-867: A foreign agent . Among other things, he disclosed that he made more than $ 17 million between 2012 and 2014 working for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. The sentencing memorandum submitted by the Office of Special Council on February 23, 2019, stated that the "filing was plainly deficient. Manafort entirely omitted [his] United States lobbying contracts   ... and a portion of the substantial compensation Manafort received from Ukraine." Early in 2017, Manafort supported Chinese efforts at providing development and investment worldwide and in Puerto Rico and Ecuador. Early in 2017, he discussed possible Chinese investment sources for Ecuador with Lenín Moreno who later obtained loans worth several billion US dollars from

555-559: A $ 10 million (~$ 15 million in 2023) annual contract with Deripaska to promote Russian interests in politics, business, and media coverage in Europe and the United States, starting in 2005. A witness at Manafort's 2018 trial for fraud and tax evasion testified that Deripaska loaned Manafort $ 10 million in 2010, which to her knowledge was never repaid. At Manafort's trial , federal prosecutors alleged that between 2010 and 2014 he

666-626: A $ 600,000 (~$ 1.44 million in 2023) contract with Jonas Savimbi , the leader of the Angolan rebel group UNITA , to refurbish Savimbi's image in Washington and secure financial support on the basis of his anti-communism stance. BMSK arranged for Savimbi to attend events at the American Enterprise Institute (where Jeane Kirkpatrick gave him a laudatory introduction), The Heritage Foundation , and Freedom House ; in

777-494: A $ 7.8 million debt to Oguster Management Limited, a company connected to Deripaska. This accords with a 2015 court complaint filed by Deripaska claiming that Manafort and his partners owed him $ 19 million in relation to a failed Ukrainian cable television business. In January 2018, Surf Horizon Limited, a Cyprus-based company tied to Deripaska, sued Manafort and his business partner Richard "Rick" Gates , accusing them of financial fraud by misappropriating more than $ 18.9 million that

888-407: A 2008 U.S. Justice Department annual report, Manafort's company received $ 63,750 from Yanukovych's Party of Regions over a six-month period ending on March 31, 2008, for consulting services. In the 2010 election, Yanukovych managed to pull off a narrow win over Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko , a leader of the 2004 demonstrations. Yanukovych owed his comeback in Ukraine's presidential election to

999-554: A Shanghai construction billionaire Yan Jiehe  [ zh ] ( 严介和 ), who owns the Pacific Construction Group ( 太平洋建设 ) and is China's seventh richest man with a fortune estimated at $ 14.2 billion in 2015, on obtaining international contracts. In mid-2017, Manafort left the United States in order to help organize the 2017 Kurdistan Region independence referendum that was to be held on September 25, 2017, something that surprised both investigators and

1110-535: A candidate can often be elected with the support of only a minority of votes, leaving the majority of votes cast wasted, and thus a moderate winning vote of say just 34 percent repeated in several swing seats can be enough to create a landslide increase in seats won by a government. The district-by-district basis of ' First past the post voting ' elections means that parties will usually categorise and target various districts by whether they are likely to be held with ease, or winnable by extra campaigning, or written off as

1221-486: A drastic makeover of his political persona, and—people in his party say—that makeover was engineered in part by his American consultant, Manafort. In 2007 and 2008, Manafort was involved in investment projects with Deripaska—the acquisition of a Ukrainian telecommunications company—and Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash —redevelopment of the site of the former Drake Hotel in New York City ). Manafort negotiated

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1332-411: A foregone loss hardly worth fighting for. A safe seat is one that is regarded as very unlikely to be won by a rival politician based on the constituency 's past voting record or polling results. Conversely, a marginal seat or swing seat is one that could easily swing either way, and may even have changed hands frequently in recent decades - the party that currently holds it may have only won it by

1443-423: A larger state (a country , administrative region , or other polity ) created to provide its population with representation in the larger state's legislature . That body, or the state's constitution or a body established for that purpose, determines each district's boundaries and whether each will be represented by a single member or multiple members. Generally, only voters ( constituents ) who reside within

1554-664: A lawyer connected to the Kremlin . At first, Trump Jr. said the meeting had been primarily about the Russian ban on international adoptions (in response to the Magnitsky Act ) and mentioned nothing about Mrs. Clinton; he later said the offer of information about Clinton had been a pretext to conceal Veselnitskaya's real agenda. In August 2016, Manafort's connections to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his pro-Russian Party of Regions drew national attention in

1665-450: A low effective number of parties . Malta with only two major parties is a stark example of divergence from Duverger's rule. In a system where the intent is to avoid the waste of votes, a set proportion of votes, as a minimum, assures the election of a candidate. This is set as the inverse of the district magnitude plus one, plus one, the Droop quota . Droop is the mathematical threshold that

1776-572: A municipality. However, in the Republic of Ireland , voting districts are called local electoral areas . District magnitude is a term invented by the American political scientist Douglas W. Rae in his 1967 dissertation The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws . It refers to the number of seats assigned to each district, and thus helping determine the number of seats to be filled in any election. Staggered terms are sometimes used to reduce

1887-487: A particular group has a slight majority, for instance, gerrymandering politicians can obtain 2/3 of that district's seats. Similarly, by making four-member districts in regions where the same group has slightly less than a majority, gerrymandering politicians can still secure exactly half of the seats. However, any possible gerrymandering that theoretically could occur would be much less effective because minority groups can still elect at least one representative if they make up

1998-552: A possible agreement between Russia and the Trump campaign. While Manafort served within the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign , it is alleged that Manafort, via Kyiv -based operative Konstantin Kilimnik , offered to provide briefings on political developments to Deripaska. Behaviors such as these were seen by writers at The Atlantic as an attempt by Manafort "to please an oligarch tied to" Putin's government. In 1980, Manafort

2109-498: A referendum on the sale of agricultural land. Yuriy Boyko   · Oleksandr Vilkul   · Mykhailo Dobkin   · Vadym Rabinovych   · Oleksiy Bilyi Serhiy Larin   · Nestor Shufrych   · Natalia Korolevska   · Tetiana Bakhteyeva   · Mykola Skoryk Paul Manafort Paul John Manafort Jr. ( / ˈ m æ n ə f ɔːr t / ; born April 1, 1949)

2220-574: A resolution condemning the jailing of Yanukovych's main political rival, Yulia Tymoshenko . Financial records certified in December 2015 and filed by Manafort in Cyprus showed him to be approximately $ 17 million (~$ 21.4 million in 2023) in debt to interests connected to interests favorable to Putin and Yanukovych in the months before joining the Trump presidential campaign in March. These included

2331-428: A significant percentage of the population (e.g. 20–25%), compared to single-member districts where 40–49% of the voters can be essentially shut out from any representation. Sometimes, particularly under non-proportional or winner-takes-all voting systems, elections can be prone to landslide victories . As the result in each district is not related to votes cast elsewhere and may not reflect a party's national popularity,

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2442-827: A significant presence in an area. Many assemblies allow free postage (through franking privilege or prepaid envelopes) from a representative to a constituent, and often free telecommunications. Caseworkers may be employed by representatives to assist constituents with problems. Members of the U.S. Congress (both Representatives and Senators) working in Washington, D.C., have a governmentally staffed district office to aid in constituent services. Many state legislatures have followed suit. Likewise, British MPs use their Parliamentary staffing allowance to appoint staff for constituency casework. Client politics and pork barrel politics are associated with constituency work. In some elected assemblies, some or all constituencies may group voters based on some criterion other than, or in addition to,

2553-517: A slender margin and a party that wants to win it may be able to take it away from its present holder with little effort. In United Kingdom general elections and United States presidential and congressional elections, the voting in a relatively small number of swing seats usually determines the outcome of the entire election. Parties aspire to hold as many safe seats as possible, and high-level politicians, such as prime ministers, prefer to stand in safe seats. In large multi-party systems like India ,

2664-533: A small shift in election results, sometimes caused by swing votes, can lead to no party taking a majority of seats, causing a hung assembly . This may arise from a significant number of seats going to smaller regional parties instead of the larger national parties which are the main competitors at the national or state level, as was the situation in the Lok Sabha (Lower house of the Parliament of India ) during

2775-686: A strong backer of Manafort, had become uneasy about his Russian connections and suspected that he had not been forthright about them. Manafort stated in an internal staff memorandum that he would "remain the campaign chairman and chief strategist, providing the big-picture, long-range campaign vision". However, two days later, Trump announced his acceptance of Manafort's resignation from the campaign after Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway took on senior leadership roles within that campaign. Upon Manafort's resignation as campaign chairman, Newt Gingrich stated, "nobody should underestimate how much Paul Manafort did to really help get this campaign to where it

2886-576: A waiver from federal statutes prohibiting public officials from acting as foreign agents; Manafort resigned his directorship at OPIC in May 1986. An investigation by the Department of Justice found 18 lobbying-related activities that were not reported in FARA filings, including lobbying on behalf of The Bahamas and Saint Lucia . Manafort's firm, BMSK, accepted $ 950,000 yearly to lobby for then-president of

2997-493: A way that effectively obscured the foreign political party's efforts to influence U.S. policy. Associated Press noted that under federal law, U.S. lobbyists must declare publicly if they represent foreign leaders or their political parties and provide detailed reports about their actions to the Justice Department, which Manafort reportedly did not do. The lobbying firms unsuccessfully lobbied U.S. Congress to reject

3108-691: Is allowed to affect apportionment, with rural areas with sparse populations allocated more seats per elector: for example in Iceland, the Falkland Islands, Scottish islands, and (partly) in US Senate elections. Gerrymandering is the manipulation of electoral district boundaries for political gain. By creating a few "forfeit" districts where opposing candidates win overwhelmingly, gerrymandering politicians can manufacture more, but narrower, wins for themselves and their party. Gerrymandering relies on

3219-725: Is an American former lobbyist , political consultant , and attorney . A long-time Republican Party campaign consultant, he chaired the Trump presidential campaign from June to August 2016. Manafort served as an adviser to the U.S. presidential campaigns of Republicans Gerald Ford , Ronald Reagan , George H. W. Bush , and Bob Dole . In 1980, he co-founded the Washington, D.C.–based lobbying firm Black, Manafort & Stone , along with principals Charles R. Black Jr. and Roger Stone , joined by Peter G. Kelly in 1984. Manafort often lobbied on behalf of foreign leaders such as former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych , former dictator of

3330-481: Is as follows: According to Tadeusz Olszański  [ pl ] , of the Centre for Eastern Studies , the party's 2014 election programme was socially liberal and pro- Russophone . The party's platform envisages protecting the status of Russian as a regional language . The party wants "maximum decentralization" for Ukraine. The party wants a non-aligned status for Ukraine and wants to prevent it from becoming

3441-537: Is minimal (exactly 1) in plurality voting in single-member districts ( First-past-the-post voting used in most cases). As well, where multi-member districts are used, threshold de facto stays high if seats are filled by general ticket or other pro-landslide party block system (rarely used nationwide nowadays). In such situations each voter has one vote. District magnitude is larger than 1 where multiple members are elected - plural districts ), and under plurality block voting (where voter may cast as many votes as

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3552-404: Is not synonymous with proportional representation. The use of "general ticket voting" prevents the multiple-member representation of the district from being mixed and balanced. Where list PR is used in the district, a closed list PR method gives the party machine, not the voters, the power to arrange the candidates on the party list. In this case, a large district magnitude helps minorities only if

3663-416: Is right now." Gingrich later added that, for the Trump administration, "It makes perfect sense for them to distance themselves from somebody who apparently didn't tell them what he was doing." In January 2019, Manafort's lawyers submitted a filing to the court in response to the allegation that Manafort had lied to investigators. Through an error in redacting, the document accidentally revealed that while he

3774-425: Is the mathematical minimum whereby no more will be elected than there are seats to be filled. It ensures election in contests where all votes are used to elect someone. (Probabilistic threshold should include the likely number of votes wasted to minor lists). For instance, a 10%-polling party will not win a seat in a 5-member district (Droop quota of 1/6=16.67%) but will do so in a 10-member district as its 10 percent of

3885-585: The 2012 parliamentary elections . In September 2014 American lobbyist Paul Manafort was hired as an advisor to (former Manafort client) Viktor Yanukovych 's former head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine Serhiy Lyovochkin . Manafort was tasked with rebranding Party of Regions . Instead, he argued to help stabilize Ukraine, Manafort advised to create a new political party called Opposition Bloc . According to Ukrainian political analyst Mikhail Pogrebinsky "He thought to gather

3996-486: The 2014 Ukrainian presidential election . In which they scored 0.19%, 3.03% and 2.25%. Korolevska and Boyko were both ministers in the second Azarov Government . Serhiy Lyovochkin was also a candidate of the party. Five members of Party of Regions were in the top 10 of the Opposition Bloc's electoral list. The party won 29 seats; including the winning of 2 constituency seats. It won 2 constituency seats but for

4107-560: The 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election , with the Opposition Bloc — Party of Peace and Development (also) named into Opposition Bloc . Chairman: Fraction in Verkhovna Rada leader The party was registered at the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice on 23 April 2010 as "Leading Force" ( Ukrainian : Ведуча сила , Russian : Ведущая сила) The party was the led by Anatoly Kornienko . The party did not participate in

4218-461: The 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election , with the Opposition Bloc — Party of Peace and Development (also) named into Opposition Bloc . On March 31, 2015, the Opposition Bloc announced the creation of a project for the Shadow cabinet of Ukraine, which, according to the authors, will develop bills in opposition to the policies of Kyiv. The composition of the shadow government of the Opposition Bloc

4329-660: The Cantonal Council of Zürich are reapportioned in every election based on the number of votes cast in each district , which is only made possible by use of multi-member districts, and the House of Peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina , by contrast, is apportioned without regard to population; the three major ethnic groups – Bosniaks , Serbs , and Croats – each get exactly five members. Malapportionment occurs when voters are under- or over-represented due to variation in district population. In some places, geographical area

4440-611: The China Development Bank . In May 2017, Manafort and Moreno discussed the possibility of Manafort brokering a deal for Ecuador to relinquish Julian Assange to American authorities in exchange for concessions such as debt relief from the United States. Manafort acted as the go between for the China Development Bank's investment fund to support bailout bonds for Puerto Rico's sovereign debt financing and other infrastructure items. Also, he advised

4551-756: The GRU , and every bit of information about his work with Manafort went directly to Russian intelligence. Lobbying for foreign countries requires registration with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Manafort did not do so at the time of his lobbying. In April 2017, a Manafort spokesman said Manafort was planning to file the required paperwork; however, according to Associated Press reporters, as of June 2, 2017, Manafort had not yet registered. On June 27, he filed to be retroactively registered as

Opposition Bloc - Misplaced Pages Continue

4662-514: The Orange Revolution overturned rigged Yanukovych's victory in the 2004 presidential race. Borys Kolesnikov , Yanukovych's campaign manager, said the party hired Manafort after identifying organizational and other problems in the 2004 elections, in which it was advised by Russian strategists. Manafort rebuffed U.S. Ambassador William B. Taylor Jr. when the latter complained he was undermining U.S. interests in Ukraine. According to

4773-541: The Philippines Ferdinand Marcos , former dictator of Zaire Mobutu Sese Seko , and Angolan guerrilla leader Jonas Savimbi . Lobbying to serve the interests of foreign governments requires registration with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA); on June 27, 2017, he retroactively registered as a foreign agent . On October 27, 2017, Manafort and his business associate Rick Gates were indicted in

4884-601: The Philippines Ferdinand Marcos . He was also involved in lobbying for Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaïre , securing a US$ 1 million (~$ 2.14 million in 2023) annual contract in 1989, and attempted to recruit Siad Barre of Somalia as a client. His firm lobbied on behalf of the governments of the Dominican Republic , Equatorial Guinea , Kenya , earning between $ 660,000 and $ 750,000 each year between 1991 and 1993, and Nigeria , earning $ 1 million in 1991. These activities led Manafort's firm to be listed amongst

4995-406: The Presidential Administration of Ukraine Serhiy Lyovochkin . In this role, he was asked to assist in rebranding Yanukovych's Party of Regions. Instead, he argued to help stabilize Ukraine. Manafort was instrumental in creating a new political party called Opposition Bloc . According to Ukrainian political analyst Mikhail Pogrebinsky, "He thought to gather the largest number of people opposed to

5106-573: The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on multiple charges arising from his consulting work for the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine before Yanukovych's overthrow in 2014 . The indictment came at the request of Robert Mueller 's Special Counsel investigation . In June 2018, additional charges were filed against Manafort for obstruction of justice and witness tampering that are alleged to have occurred while he

5217-527: The Ukrainian presidential campaign of Yanukovych (and his Party of Regions during the same time span) from December 2004 until the February 2010 Ukrainian presidential election , even as the U.S. government (and U.S. Senator John McCain ) opposed Yanukovych because of his ties to Russia's leader Vladimir Putin . Manafort was hired to advise Yanukovych months after massive street demonstrations known as

5328-503: The United States District Court for the District of Columbia , Manafort pled guilty to two charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States and witness tampering , while agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors. On November 26, 2018, Mueller reported that Manafort violated his plea deal by repeatedly lying to investigators. On February 13, 2019, D.C. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson concurred, voiding

5439-439: The wasted-vote effect , effectively concentrating wasted votes among opponents while minimizing wasted votes among supporters. Consequently, gerrymandering is typically done under voting systems using single-member districts, which have more wasted votes. While much more difficult, gerrymandering can also be done under proportional-voting systems when districts elect very few seats. By making three-member districts in regions where

5550-404: The 1990s. Elected representatives may spend much of the time serving the needs or demands of individual constituents , meaning either voters or residents of their district. This is more common in assemblies with many single-member or small districts than those with fewer, larger districts. In a looser sense, corporations and other such organizations can be referred to as constituents, if they have

5661-484: The 2014 parliamentary elections as Opposition Bloc. Many individual members of Party of Regions ended up as candidates of Opposition Bloc. Among them Yuriy Boyko , who headed the party's election list. Other main figures on this election list are Natalia Korolevska , Mykhailo Dobkin and Vadim Rabinovich . In September 2014 Boyko argued that Opposition Bloc does not represent parties, but consisted only of individual politicians. Boyko, Dobkin and Rabinovich all took part in

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5772-544: The Party of Development of Ukraine) were excluded from the Opposition Bloc faction (the reason given was) "because they betrayed their voters" interests. On 17 December 2018 an Opposition Bloc congress nominated Oleksandr Vilkul as their candidate in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election . But a Ukrainian court ruled three days before (in response to a lawsuit filed by People's Deputy of Ukraine for Opposition Bloc Serhiy Larin ) that Opposition Bloc's congress at which Vikul

5883-564: The Party of Regions choose not to participate in the elections; it deemed the election lacking legitimacy because the residents of the Donbas could not vote in the election. Also on 14 September 2014, a forum took place in Kyiv with the banner "Peace. Stability. Revival", at the end of which Party of Development of Ukraine , Center All-Ukrainian Union , Ukraine – Forward! , Labour Ukraine , New Politic and "State neutrality" decided to take part in

5994-813: The State Department for a waiver of his visa ban, primarily so that he could solicit otherwise unavailable institutional purchasers for shares in his company, RusAL . Then in early 2004, Deripaska met with Manafort's partner, Rick Davis , also a prior campaign adviser to Bob Dole, to discuss hiring Manafort and Davis to return the former Georgian Minister of State Security, Igor Giorgadze , to prominence in Georgian politics. By December 2004, however, Deripaska shelved his plans in Georgia and dispatched Manafort to meet with Akhmetov in Ukraine to help Akhmetov and his holding firm, System Capital Management, weather

6105-417: The Trump campaign." During a February 4, 2019, closed-door court hearing regarding false statements Manafort had made to investigators about his communications with Kilimnik, special counsel prosecutor Andrew Weissmann told judge Amy Berman Jackson that "This goes, I think, very much to the heart of what the special counsel's office is investigating," suggesting that Mueller's office continued to examine

6216-483: The US, where it was reported that Manafort may have received $ 12.7 million (~$ 15.8 million in 2023) in off-the-books funds from the Party of Regions. On August 17, 2016, Trump received his first security briefing. The same day, August 17, Trump shook up his campaign organization in a way that appeared to minimize Manafort's role. It was reported that members of Trump's family, particularly Kushner, who had originally been

6327-414: The United States and around the world, described himself as an outsider not connected to the Washington establishment, and offered to work without salary. In March 2016, he joined Trump's presidential campaign to take the lead in getting commitments from convention delegates. On June 20, 2016, Trump fired campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and promoted Manafort to the position. Manafort gained control of

6438-591: The United States just before both his indictment and the start of the 2017 Iraqi–Kurdish conflict in which the Peshmerga -led Kurds lost the Mosul Dam and their main revenue source at the Baba GurGur Kirkuk oilfields to Iraqi forces. Constituency An electoral ( congressional , legislative , etc.) district , sometimes called a constituency , riding , or ward , is a subdivision of

6549-515: The agreement was a "personal initiative" of Boyko and that the party had not take any decisions on cooperation with For life. On 17 November 2018 Opposition Platform — For life nominated Boyko as its candidate in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. The same day Opposition Bloc member Party of Development of Ukraine joined the Opposition Platform — For life alliance. On 20 November 2018 Boyko and Serhiy Lyovochkin (leading member of

6660-501: The aim of his activities in Ukraine had been to lead the country "closer to Europe". Ukrainian government National Anti-Corruption Bureau studying secret documents claimed in August 2016 to have found handwritten records that show $ 12.7 million in cash payments designated for Manafort, although they had yet to determine if he had received the money. These undisclosed payments were from the pro-Russian political party Party of Regions, of

6771-479: The company had invested in Ukrainian telecom companies, known collectively as the "Black Sea Cable". An additional $ 9.9 million debt was owed to a Cyprus company that tied through shell companies to Ivan Fursin  [ uk ] , a Ukrainian Member of Parliament of the Party of Regions. Manafort spokesman Jason Maloni maintained in response, "Manafort is not indebted to Deripaska or the Party of Regions, nor

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6882-760: The construction company New Britain House Wrecking Company in 1919 (later renamed Manafort Brothers Inc.). His father served in the U.S. Army combat engineers during World War II and was mayor of New Britain from 1965 to 1971. His father was indicted in a corruption scandal in 1981 but not convicted. In 1967, Manafort graduated from St. Thomas Aquinas High School , a private Roman Catholic secondary school, in New Britain. He attended Georgetown University , where he received his B.S. in business administration in 1971 and his J.D. in 1974. Between 1977 and 1980, Manafort practiced law with

6993-545: The courts injunction of 20 December 2018 (which prohibited any changes to the statute of the (party) Opposition Bloc). The Industrial Party of Ukraine was registered by the Ministry of Justice on 13 June 2014, and Rostyslav Shurma was then the chairman of this party. Shurma was at the time General Director of Zaporizhstal . Zaporizhstal is part of the industrial complex owned by Rinat Akhmetov. Both these two offspring of Opposition Bloc took part independently of each other in

7104-700: The current government, you needed to avoid anything concrete, and just become a symbol of being opposed". According to Manafort, he has not worked in Ukraine since the October 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election . However, according to Ukrainian border control entry data, Manafort traveled to Ukraine several times after that election, all the way through late 2015. According to The New York Times , his local office in Ukraine closed in May 2016. According to Politico , by then Opposition Bloc had already stopped payments for Manafort and this local office. In an April 2016 interview with ABC News , Manafort stated that

7215-572: The daily operations of the campaign as well as an expanded $ 20 million budget, hiring decisions, advertising, and media strategy. On June 9, 2016, Manafort, Donald Trump Jr. , and Jared Kushner were participants in a meeting with Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya and several others at Trump Tower . A British music agent, saying he was acting on behalf of Emin Agalarov and the Russian government, had told Trump Jr. that he could obtain damaging information on Hillary Clinton if he met with

7326-617: The day after the Crimean status referendum , Yanukovych became one of the first eleven persons who were placed under executive sanctions on the Specially Designated Nationals List (SDN) by President Barack Obama , freezing his assets in the US and banning him from entering the United States. Manafort then returned to Ukraine in September 2014 to become an adviser to Yanukovych's former head of

7437-414: The district are permitted to vote in an election held there. District representatives may be elected by a first-past-the-post system, a proportional representative system, or another voting method . They may be selected by a direct election under universal suffrage , an indirect election , or another form of suffrage . The names for electoral districts vary across countries and, occasionally, for

7548-1038: The electorate or where relatively few members overall are elected, even if the election is held at-large. District magnitude may be set at an equal number of seats in each district. Examples include: all districts of the Northern Ireland Assembly elected 6 members (5 members since 2017); all those of the Parliament of Malta send 5 MPs; Chile, between 1989 and 2013, used a method called binomial voting , which assigned 2 MPs to each district. In many cases, however, multi-member constituencies correspond to already existing jurisdictions (regions, districts, wards, cities, counties, states or provinces), which creates differences in district magnitude from district to district: The concept of district magnitude helps explains why Duverger's speculated correlation between proportional representation and party system fragmentation has many counter-examples, as PR methods combined with small-sized multi-member constituencies may produce

7659-683: The firm of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease in Washington, D.C. In 1976, Manafort was the delegate-hunt coordinator for eight states for the President Ford Committee ; the overall Ford delegate operation was run by James A. Baker III . Between 1978 and 1980, Manafort was the southern coordinator for Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign , and the deputy political director at the Republican National Committee . After Reagan's election in November 1980, he

7770-437: The former president of Ukraine Yanukovych. This payment record spans from 2007 to 2012. Manafort's lawyer, Richard A. Hibey, said Manafort didn't receive "any such cash payments" as described by the anti-corruption officials. The Associated Press reported on August 17, 2016, that Manafort secretly routed at least $ 2.2 million in payments to two prominent Washington lobbying firms in 2012 on Party of Regions' behalf, and did so in

7881-606: The largest number of people opposed to the current government, you needed to avoid anything concrete, and just become a symbol of being opposed". It was planned that the biggest party in the previous 2012 parliamentary elections , Party of Regions, would be part of the Opposition Bloc in the 2014 parliamentary elections . This alliance was to be led by Serhiy Tihipko . But he refused to do so because in his opinion in this alliance there were "people tainted by corruption and to put it mildly, unpatriotic". Tihipko then became leader of (the revived) Strong Ukraine . On 14 September 2014,

7992-463: The legislature. When referring to a particular legislative constituency, it is simply referred to as "Kṣetra" along with the name of the legislature, in Hindi (e.g. 'Lok Sabha Kshetra' for a Lok Sabha constituency). Electoral districts for buli municipal or other local bodies are called "wards". Local electoral districts are sometimes called wards , a term also used for administrative subdivisions of

8103-531: The location they live. Examples include: Not all democratic political systems use separate districts or other electoral subdivisions to conduct elections. Israel , for instance, conducts parliamentary elections as a single district. The 26 electoral districts in Italy and the 20 in the Netherlands have a role in the actual election, but no role whatsoever in the division of the seats. Ukraine elected half of

8214-447: The make-up of the district map, made easier by a multitude of micro-small districts. A higher magnitude means less wasted votes, and less room for such maneuvers. As well, a fair voting system in the district contests also means that gerrymandering is ineffective because each party gets their fair share of seats however districts are drawn, at least theoretically. Multiple-member contests sometimes use plurality block voting , which allows

8325-569: The media. He was hired by the President of Kurdistan Region Masoud Barzani 's son Masrour Barzani who heads the Kurdistan Region Security Council . To help Manafort's efforts in supporting Kurdish freedom and independence, his longtime associate Phillip M. Griffin traveled to Erbil prior to the vote. The referendum was not supported by United States Secretary of Defense James Mattis . Manafort returned to

8436-730: The nationwide party lists of the election (53.2% of the seats was elected by a nationwide party lists and 46.8% in 198 constituencies) the party gained most votes in all 14 constituencies in Kharkiv Oblast , all 6 constituencies in Luhansk Oblast (were voting was possible), 8 out of 9 in Zaporizhzhia Oblast (Petro Poroshenko Bloc winning the remaining constituency), in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast 10 out of 17 constituencies ( Petro Poroshenko Bloc winning

8547-550: The number of representatives allotted to each. Israel and the Netherlands are among the few countries that avoid the need for apportionment entirely by electing legislators at-large . Apportionment is generally done on the basis of population . Seats in the United States House of Representatives , for instance, are reapportioned to individual states every 10 years following a census, with some states that have grown in population gaining seats. By contrast, seats in

8658-493: The number of seats to be filled), proportional representation or single transferable vote elections (where the voter casts just one vote). In STV elections DM normally range from 2 to 10 members in a district. But 21 are elected in a single contest conducted through STV in New South Wales (Australia). In list PR systems DM may exceed 100. District magnitude is maximized where: DM is moderate where districts break up

8769-583: The number of seats up for election at any one time, when district magnitude is more than one. The number of seats up for election varies the ease or difficulty to be elected, as the threshold de facto decreases in proportion as the number of seats being filled increases, unless a pro-landslide voting system is used such as general ticket voting. The concept of magnitude explains Duverger's observation that single-winner contests tend to produce two-party systems , and proportional representation (PR) methods tend to produce multi-party systems . District magnitude

8880-533: The office being elected. The term constituency is commonly used to refer to an electoral district, especially in British English , but it can also refer to the body of eligible voters or all the residents of the represented area or only those who voted for a certain candidate. The terms (election) precinct and election district are more common in American English . In Canadian English ,

8991-409: The only state language, but advocates to allow ethnic minorities to be able to define Russian and other minority languages as regional languages in their own communities. In 2017 Opposition Bloc MP's opposed the law that made Ukrainian the main language of public education, in 2018 they were against a draft bill that establishes Ukrainian as the obligatory language in all spheres of public life, and makes

9102-512: The other wing of Opposition Bloc. Early November 2018 the party members loyal to Akhmetov decided to take a pause in the negotiations. On 9 November 2018 Opposition Bloc chairman Boyko and Vadim Rabinovich 's party For life signed an agreement for cooperation in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election and the parliamentary election of the same year and created the alliance Opposition Platform — For life . The same day Opposition Bloc leading members Vadym Novynskyi and Borys Kolesnikov claimed

9213-426: The party and its parliamentary faction after a request from his party Center All-Ukrainian Union. According to Ukrainska Pravda in the summer of 2018 negotiations on the unification of the parties For life and Opposition Bloc started. Ukrainska Pravda says these talks were instigated by Serhiy Lyovochkin who, along with Dmytro Firtash , controlled one of the wings of the party. While Rinat Akhmetov controlled

9324-504: The party machine of any party chooses to include them. In a multi-member district where general ticket voting is not used, there is a natural impetus for a party to open itself to minority voters, if they have enough numbers to be significant, due to the competitive environment produced by the electoral system. Apportionment is the process of allocating a number of representatives to different regions, such as states or provinces. Apportionment changes are often accompanied by redistricting ,

9435-574: The plea deal. On March 7, 2019, Judge T. S. Ellis III sentenced Manafort to 47 months in prison. On March 13, 2019, Jackson sentenced Manafort to an additional 43 months in prison. Minutes after his sentencing, New York state prosecutors charged Manafort with sixteen state felonies. On December 18, 2019, the state charges against him were dismissed because of the doctrine of double jeopardy . The Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in August 2020 that Manafort's ties to individuals connected to Russian intelligence while he

9546-496: The plight of the Kashmiri people. However, an FBI investigation revealed the money was actually from Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) agency as part of a disinformation operation to divert attention from terrorism. A former Pakistani ISI official claimed Manafort was aware of the nature of the operation. While producing a documentary as part of the deal, Manafort interviewed several Indian officials while pretending to be

9657-408: The political crisis brought by the Orange Revolution . Akhmetov would eventually flee to Monaco after being accused of murder, but during the crisis Manafort shepherded Akhemtov around Washington, meeting with U.S. officials like Dick Cheney . Akhmetov introduced Manafort to Yanukovych, to whose political party, the Party of Regions, Akhmetov was a contributor. Manafort worked as an adviser on

9768-532: The political scene, with reports of him potentially joining the Trump 2024 campaign. Paul John Manafort Jr. was born on April 1, 1949, in New Britain, Connecticut . Manafort's parents are Antoinette Mary Manafort (née Cifalu; 1921–2003) and Paul John Manafort Sr. (1923–2013). His grandfather immigrated to the United States from Italy in the early 20th century, settling in Connecticut. He founded

9879-461: The redrawing of electoral district boundaries to accommodate the new number of representatives. This redrawing is necessary under single-member district systems, as each new representative requires their own district. Multi-member systems, however, vary depending on other rules. Ireland, for example, redraws its electoral districts after every census while Belgium uses its existing administrative boundaries for electoral districts and instead modifies

9990-403: The remaining constituency won by Opposition Bloc. On 27 November 2014 an Opposition Bloc parliamentary faction of 40 people was formed (at the opening session of the new parliament). The party was one of the winners of the 2015 Ukrainian local elections gaining nationwide 11.5%. It gained most (of all) votes South and East Ukraine (except of Kharkiv Oblast ). In May 2016 Rabinovich left

10101-508: The remaining constituency), in Donetsk Oblast (were voting was possible) 6 out of 11 constituencies (Petro Poroshenko Bloc winning the remaining 5 constituencies). In Odesa Oblast 27 October preliminary result indicated that Petro Poroshenko Bloc had won 7 constituencies with the remaining 4 constituencies won by Opposition Bloc. In Mykolaiv Oblast Petro Poroshenko Bloc seemed to be the clear winner with winning 5 constituencies while

10212-442: The representation of minorities. John Stuart Mill had endorsed proportional representation (PR) and STV in the mid-19th century precisely to respond to this shortcoming. With lower district magnitudes, the only way to include demographic minorities scattered across the country is to force parties to include them: Large district magnitudes increase the chance for diverse walks of life and minority groups to be elected. However, it

10323-437: The rules permit voters not to rank all the candidates or prevent them from ranking all the candidates, some votes are declared exhausted. Thus it is common for one or two members in a district to be elected without attaining Droop. Larger district magnitudes means larger districts, so annihilate the need and practice of gerrymandering , Gerrymandering is the practice of partisan redistricting by means of creating imbalances in

10434-463: The single largest group to take all the district seats. Each voter having just one vote in a multi-member district, Single voting, a component of most party-list proportional representation methods as well as single non-transferable vote and single transferable vote , prevents such a landslide. High district magnitude is a major factor in the inclusion of minorities . Plurality (and other elections with lower district magnitudes) are known to limit

10545-470: The term electorate generally refers specifically to the body of voters. In India , electoral districts are referred to as " Nirvācan Kṣetra " ( Hindi : निर्वाचन क्षेत्र ) in Hindi , which can be translated to English as "electoral area" though the official English translation for the term is "constituency". The term "Nirvācan Kṣetra" is used while referring to an electoral district in general irrespective of

10656-463: The term is used, especially officially, but is also colloquially and more commonly known as a riding or constituency . In some parts of Canada, constituency is used for provincial districts and riding for federal districts. In colloquial Canadian French , they are called comtés ("counties"), while circonscriptions comtés is the legal term. In Australia and New Zealand , Electoral districts are called electorates , however elsewhere

10767-544: The top five lobbying firms receiving money from human-rights abusing regimes in the Center for Public Integrity report "The Torturers' Lobby". The New York Times reported that Manafort accepted payment from the Kurdistan Region to facilitate Western recognition of the 2017 Kurdistan Region independence referendum . Manafort wrote the campaign strategy for Édouard Balladur in the 1995 French elections, and

10878-469: The violation of this legislation an administrative offense. The party hopes to criminalize "the incitement of inter-regional hatred" and ban all organizations that promote "inter-regional hatred", use "violence as an instrument for political gain", or set up illegal paramilitary forces. Other political wishes of the party are "the reduction of tax pressure", introduction of "advisory referendums and plebiscites", cancellation of "draconian pension reforms" and

10989-520: The vote exceeds the Droop quota in such a district (1/11=9%). In systems where a noticeable number of votes are wasted, such as Single non-transferable voting or Instant-runoff voting where transferable votes are used but voters are prohibited from ranking all candidates, you will see candidates win with less than Droop. STV is intended to avoid waste of votes by the use of transferable votes but even in STV, if

11100-536: The wake of the campaign, Congress approved hundreds of millions of dollars in covert American aid to Savimbi's group. Allegedly, Manafort's continuing lobbying efforts helped preserve the flow of money to Savimbi several years after the Soviet Union ceased its involvement in the Angolan conflict, forestalling peace talks. Between June 1984 and June 1986, Manafort was a FARA -registered lobbyist for Saudi Arabia . The Reagan Administration refused to grant Manafort

11211-441: Was Trump's campaign manager "represented a grave counterintelligence threat" by creating opportunities for "Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump campaign." On May 13, 2020, Manafort was released to home confinement due to the threat of COVID-19 . On December 23, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump pardoned Manafort. In mid-March 2024, Manafort re-emerged on

11322-545: Was a founding partner of Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm Black, Manafort & Stone, along with principals Charles R. Black Jr. and Roger Stone . After Peter G. Kelly was recruited, the name of the firm was changed to Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly (BMSK) in 1984. Manafort left BMSK (then a subsidiary of Burson-Marsteller) in 1995 to join Richard H. Davis and Matthew C. Freedman in forming Davis, Manafort, and Freedman. In 1985, Manafort's firm, BMSK, signed

11433-575: Was also one of the proponents of violent removal of the Euromaidan protesters, which resulted in police shooting dozens of people during 2014 Hrushevskoho Street riots . In one of the messages, his daughter writes that it was his "strategy that was to cause that, to send those people out and get them slaughtered." Manafort has rejected questions about whether Kilimnik, with whom he consulted regularly, might be in league with Russian intelligence. According to Yuri Shvets , Kilimnik previously worked for

11544-707: Was appointed associate director of the Presidential Personnel Office at the White House . In 1981, he was nominated to the board of directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation . Manafort was an adviser to the presidential campaigns of George H. W. Bush in 1988 and Bob Dole in 1996. In February 2016, Manafort approached Trump through a mutual friend, Thomas J. Barrack Jr. He pointed out his experience advising presidential campaigns in

11655-418: Was campaign chairman, Manafort met with Konstantin Kilimnik , a likely Russian intelligence officer and an alleged operative of the "Mariupol Plan" which would separate eastern Ukraine by political means with Manafort's help. The filing says Manafort gave him polling data related to the 2016 campaign and discussed a Ukrainian peace plan with him. Most of the polling data was reportedly public, although some

11766-569: Was he at the time he began working for the Trump campaign." During the 2016 Presidential campaign , Manafort, via Kilimnik, offered to provide briefings on political developments to Deripaska, though there is no evidence that the briefings took place. A July 2017 application by the FBI for a search warrant revealed that a company controlled by Manafort and his wife had received a $ 10 million (~$ 12.2 million in 2023) loan from Deripaska. According to leaked text messages between his daughters, Manafort

11877-534: Was paid indirectly. The money, at least $ 200,000, was transferred to him through his friend, Lebanese arms-dealer Abdul Rahman al-Assir, from middle-men fees paid for arranging the sale of three French Agosta -class submarines to Pakistan, in a scandal known as the Karachi affair . Manafort received $ 700,000 from the Kashmiri American Council between 1990 and 1994, supposedly to promote

11988-536: Was paid more than $ 60 million by Ukrainian sponsors, including Akhmetov, believed to be the richest man in Ukraine. In May 2011, Yanukovych stated that he would strive for Ukraine to join the European Union , In 2013, Yanukovych became the main target of the Euromaidan protests. After the February 2014 Ukrainian revolution (the conclusion of Euromaidan), Yanukovych fled to Russia. On March 17, 2014,

12099-590: Was private Trump campaign polling data. Manafort asked Kilimnik to pass the data to Ukrainians Serhiy Lyovochkin and Rinat Akhmetov . The Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in August 2020 that Manafort's contacts with Kilimnik and other affiliates of Russian intelligence "represented a grave counterintelligence threat" because his "presence on the Campaign and proximity to Trump created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on,

12210-580: Was to be nominated could not "reorganize the party by any means". On 18 December 2018 the website of Opposition Bloc stated that therefore all the decisions made at the congress were invalid. On 20 December 2018 the website of Opposition Bloc was down. Vilkul was nominated for the presidency again by Opposition Bloc — Party of Peace and Development (the recently renamed Industrial Party of Ukraine) on 20 January 2019. According to Liga.net Rinat Akhmetov had renamed Industrial Party of Ukraine to Opposition Bloc — Party of Peace and Development solely to circumvent

12321-471: Was under house arrest, and he was ordered to jail. Manafort was prosecuted in two federal courts. In August 2018, he stood trial in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and was convicted on eight charges of tax and bank fraud. Manafort was next prosecuted on ten other charges, but this effort ended in a mistrial with Manafort later admitting his guilt. In

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