Ukraine made planet-wide front page news today again, with the most unlikely candidate to the post of the president, comedian Volodymyr Zelensky, claiming massive victory in the second round of 2019 presidential elections on Sunday 21 April, beating the incumbent Petro Poroshenko in a landslide split of votes 73% to 25%.
Voting against corruption in Ukraine
Zelensky gathered 30% of votes against Poroshenko’s 16% in the first round on 31 March 2019, out of 39 registered candidates on the ballot paper.
Since no candidate managed to acquire over 50% of votes, according to the Ukrainian law, the two contenders who collected the highest number of votes proceeded to the second round scheduled for 21 April 2019.
The exit polls and first preliminary results of the voting showed that Zelensky was on track to secure around 73% of votes with the incumbent president getting only about 24-25%.
After the announcement of the exit polls results, Poroshenko conceded and Zelensky’s team celebrated victory.
The triumph of a presidential candidate with no experience of public service became the front page news globally.
The lack of the experience in politics might have played to the advantage of the newcomer, rather than beaing seen as a weakness, in the eyes of the electorate, disillusioned with the country’s results under Poroshenko amid widespread corruption and stagnating socioeconomic standards.
62% of Ukraine’s women and men voted in the second round. The turnout of voters was nearly the same in the first round on 31 March 2019 (63.5%).
Who is Volodymyr Zelensky?
Zelensky’s notoriety comes from his work as a comedian and the leading actor in a Ukrainian series Servant of the People (available on Netflix), where he plays the president of Ukraine.
In the series, a humble teacher’s anti-corruption rant went viral after being posted by students, making him a social media start and then propelling him to the post of the president.
The plot of the series has now became real life.
Historical landslide victory
Svoboda.org analysed results of democratically elected presidents of Ukraine since the country’s independence in August 1991, and pointed out how strongly different 2019 elections have been to all the past political contests. The results are truly astounding.
Historically, in the past 3 decades winners of presidential elections had only managed to score around 49-56% of votes in the first or second round. In 2014 when he was elected, Poroshenko scored 54.7% of the votes in the first round.
Zelensky managed to secure over 73% and is set to become the 6th president of Ukraine.
President of the USA Donald Trump has already called the new president-elect to congratulate him on the victory, Unian reported.
Video: The moment of victory
Z-team had been prepared for the victory, with pre-election polls showing their candidate would score around 73% of voters’ preferences. Here is the moment when the results of exit polls were announced.
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I sincerely hope his vision and fresh thoughts will serve the people of Ukraine well.
Corruption is nearly impossible to rout. Best of luck, Mr. President. ©2019
Well, yeah, it’s really cool for Ukraine to get so kind president “from the people”. Sense of humor and simplicity definitely distinguish Zelensky. Furthermore, Poroshenko made Ukrainian feel themselves bad and news about someone better gave residents a lot of hope. Maybe, this plan was premeditated – wow. It is insanely clever!! Nevertheless, I want to believe that now Ukraine in the good hands.
I think that people in Ukraine mostly voted not for Zelensky, but against Poroshenko. It is the same that there had been during elections in our region when people had been voting not for a new governor but against acting one. But at the same time Zelensky could offer Ukrainians something new and interest them. Also, he could use Poroshenko’s undone promises as the weapon during his presidential campaign.