Olexandr Borysovych Feldman (uk|Олександр Борисович Фельдман) (born January 6, 1960, Kharkiv) is a Ukrainian politician and public figure of Jewish origin, People's Deputy of Ukraine (since 2002), businessman, multi-millionaire. He is considered to be one of the most influential people in Kharkiv.[1] In 2013 he entered the rating of the hundred richest Ukrainians of the Ukrainian magazine Forbes, finishing 35th ($ 287m).[2] Since June 2015, the co-chairman of the political party Our Land.
He is married and has two sons[3] and a grandson. He graduated from the Kharkiv National University in 2002, as an economist.[4]
He is a member of the Ukrainian Parliament and president of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee.[5] Feldman is also a co-founder of the Institute of Human Rights and the Prevention of Extremism and Xenophobia.[6]
Feldman first entered the Ukrainian parliament after winning a single-member district located in Kharkiv during the 2002 Ukrainian parliamentary election.[7] In parliament he joined the United Ukraine faction and when that party merged with Batkivshchyna Feldman joined this party too.[7] [8] [9] [10]
Batkivshchyna was a part of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc during the 2006 Ukrainian parliamentary election and 2007 Ukrainian parliamentary election Feldman was re-elected into parliament on a party ticket of this bloc of political parties.[7] [11] He also was of its Kharkiv regional party organization.[7] In March 2011 Feldman left the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc faction in parliament and joined the Party of Regions.[7] He did so citing too much influence of nationalism in the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc.[7]
In the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election Feldman won a parliamentary seat in a single-member district located in Kharkiv for Party of Regions.[7]
In the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election Feldman as an independent candidate won the same single-member district as in 2012 with 64.94% of the votes.[7] [12]
Feldman joined the party Our Land in August 2015.[13]
In 2017, he was elected to the board of the international organization "Religions for Peace", a pacifist organization with headquarters in New York, which has consultative status with UNESCO, UNICEF and the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.[14]
In the July 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election Feldman was re-elected to parliament after again winning electoral district 174 in Kharkiv, again as an independent candidate.[15] [16] This time with 37.24% of the votes (slightly 4% more than runner-up Viktoria Alekseychuk of the Servant of the People party).[15] [17] In parliament he joined the Opposition Platform — For Life faction.[18] For this party Feldman was candidate in the October 2020 Kharkiv mayoral election.[19] He finished second with 14.32%, losing to incumbent mayor Hennadiy Kernes.[20]
On 15 March 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Feldman left the Opposition Platform — For Life faction stating that the party's actions leading up to and during the war contradicted their previous stance of stressing the need to negotiate agreements to end wars.[21]