Volodymyr Chemerys

Volodymyr Chemerys (Ukrainian: Володимир Володимирович Чемерис) (born October 19, 1962 in Konotop) is a Ukrainian politician and human rights activist. Chemerys was a member of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) of the second convocation (1994–1998), but he is mostly known as one of informal leaders of the Ukraine without Kuchma mass protest campaign of 2000-2001.

Volodymyr Chemerys is a founding member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Union - one of the first perestroika organizations in Ukraine advocating renessaince of national culture and independence (now a human rights-advocating group)

He also took part in the legendary 1991 student protests in Kiev.

Chemerys was elected to the Verkhovna Rada from a Frankivsky constituency #265 in the city of Lviv, after nominated and supported by the right-centrist Ukrainian Republican Party. Chemerys says he was mostly relying on people-to-people communications and small group of dedicated campaign volunteers so that the whole campaigning cost him and the party as low as U.S. $600.

Later, Volodymyr Chemerys was also elected as the regional party leader in the city of Kiev.

In 2000, Volodymyr Chemerys co-founded the "Ukraine without Kuchma" campaign. A co-founder of the Ukraine Without Kuchma and a member of the NSF, Chemerys has been an effective public speaker and an active negotiator. For example, in an address to parliament, Chemerys described the disappearance of journalist Georgiy Gongadze and the audio tapes presented by Socialist leader Oleksandr Moroz apparently implicating President Kuchma as "the last drop that filled the cup of distrust in the authorities. In addition, he was one of the representatives of the campaign received by their political enemy President Kuchma.

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