People in Mykolaiv have started talking about an early recall of Senkevych

Following the incident in Uman, Denys Zhelo urged Mykolaiv residents to discuss recalling the mayor

Цей матеріал також доступний:

11 Sep 2026

0 702

After the recall of Uman’s mayor Iryna Pletnyova by a popular initiative, in Mykolaiv they proposed discussing the possibility of applying the same procedure to the city mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych. With a corresponding post on his Facebook page on 11 September 2026, Denys Zhelo spoke out.

“The Uman case proved: the instrument of recalling mayors by residents’ initiative really works in Ukraine,” – he wrote.
Mykolaiv city mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych has been running the city for 11 years, but instead of development we observe systemic decline, looting and the transfer of pilfered capital abroad.
He has gone off the rails due to impunity.
The consequences of his rule resemble a Mongol-Tatar invasion: a looted and neglected city.
In addition, the city authorities constantly show disrespect toward residents and ignore their lawful rights and interests. Sienkevych systematically finishes off Mykolaiv, driving its development back into the backward, deep-Soviet times.
According to the law, residents need to collect 54,411 signatures for the resignation of Mykolaiv’s mayor Sienkevych. That is exactly the number of votes he received in the second round of the mayoral elections in 2020.
Question to Mykolaiv residents: are you ready to initiate the procedure to recall the mayor?

The author of the post sharply criticized the results of the city authorities’ work and stated that, in his opinion, during the years of Sienkevych’s leadership Mykolaiv, instead of developing, faced systemic problems. Oleksandr Sienkevych was first elected mayor of Mykolaiv in 2015. In October 2017 the city council prematurely terminated his powers, but in 2018 a court found that decision unlawful and reinstated Sienkevych in office.

In the 2020 local elections Sienkevych won in the second round, receiving 54,411 votes, or 59.74%. He ran from the “Propozytsia” party. It was to this number of votes that Zhelo referred, noting that to recall the mayor it is necessary to collect 54,411 signatures. However, there is an important legal detail here: the law requires not the same but a greater number of signatures than the number of votes cast for the candidate in the elections. That is, in Sienkevych’s case it would have been necessary to collect at least 54,412 valid signatures. For the mayor of a city of regional significance the law allocates 30 days to collect them.

At the same time, the mere collection of signatures does not yet mean the automatic dismissal of the mayor. Since Sienkevych was elected from a political party, after verification of the signatures the territorial election commission must appeal to the higher governing body of the Propozytsia party, which then makes the decision regarding the recall.

It was by this mechanism that the recall of Uman’s mayor took place this week. The initiative group collected 6,710 signatures, of which the TEC recognized 6,421 as valid. Pletnyova received 6,074 votes in the 2020 elections. After verification of the signatures the matter was forwarded to the “For the Future” party, whose congress on 8 September 2026 supported her recall. Pletnyova herself said she intends to challenge the procedure.

Under Denys Zhelo‘s post, Mykolaiv residents’ opinions were divided. Some commenters supported the idea and called to start collecting signatures.

In particular, Zhanna Tsareva wrote: “Ready! Start!”.

At the same time, other users began to ask who would govern Mykolaiv instead of Sienkevych.

Raisa Bavykina noted: “And who is the candidate to replace him? Who will lead in such a difficult time?”.

Among possible future candidates mentioned in the comments were, in particular, Anna Kurkurina and Svitlana Fedorova, although they themselves did not state in this discussion any intention to run.

There were also opponents of such an initiative. One of the commenters, Murad Kaimarazov, expressed the view that it is inadvisable to change the city’s leadership during constant Russian attacks. Others urged to first provide concrete evidence of the claims against the mayor, rather than limit themselves to political accusations.

A separate discussion arose over who would head the city in the event of the premature termination of Sienkevych‘s powers. By law in such a situation the powers of the mayor temporarily pass to the secretary of the city council. Currently this position in Mykolaiv is held by Dmytro Falko. He would perform the functions of the mayor until the start of the powers of a new mayor or until the next legally prescribed stage of forming local authorities.

Zhelo himself, after the appearance of comments, also appealed to city council deputies:

“I would like to hear the position of city council deputies on this matter. Maybe they have some visions and proposals,” – he wrote.

As of the time of publication, this is only a public proposal and discussion on social media. There were no reports yet of holding voters’ meetings, forming an initiative group, or the official start of collecting signatures to recall Oleksandr Sienkevych.