On 11 January in Kiev, the leader of the Civic Position party, Anatoliy Grytsenko, was officially nominated as a candidate at the next election of the President of Ukraine and he presented his programme for President.

Ahead of the vote, which will be held on 31 March, Mr Grytsenko will campaign on the platform of "Honest President – I will serve the people!", pledging to introduce a law allowing impeachment of the President to increase accountability, enacting electoral reform, and other initiatives to usher in more “professional and honest politicians”. His programme also includes plans to increase the state pension so that it is above the real living wage and enact plans to boost economic growth. You can read his full programme here.

Regarding the situation in Eastern Ukraine, Mr Grytsenko promised to return the occupied territories through diplomatic, military, and economic sanctions together with foreign partners. He said it would be possible to implement this within the five-year presidential term. "Ukraine will not give way to rights in Crimea in exchange for any economic actions. In Crimea our citizens are our land, and the Crimea will be Ukrainian!", he said.

ALDE Party President Hans van Baalen MEP congratulated Mr Grytsenko on his nomination via video message. He said: “Mr Grytsenko is a real European and a proud Ukrainian. He is a man of peace, of dialogue, a democrat. He is a liberal. We also hope that in the Parliamentary elections in October and given the good outcome in the Presidential elections, Civic Position have a big Parliamentary group [in the Rada] because we need a strong liberal commitment in Ukraine.”