Page 51 - BNE_magazine_05_2019

bne May 2019
Opinion 51
KYIV BLOG:
President Zelenskiy is the wind of change
Ben Aris in Berlin
"To all post-Soviet countries: look at us. Anything is possible!” outsider and comic Volodymyr Zelenskiy told cheering crowds after he won a crushing
victory over incumbent President Petro Poroshenko in the April 21 presidential election run off, taking every single region in the country except Lviv.
The race electrified Ukrainians who are tied of falling standards of living and decisively took control from the western backed Poroshenko and handed it to an unknown comedian who has said little about what he will actually
do. Zelenskiy won with the highest number of votes ever
and by the widest margin ever. This election will change the way elections are run throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), although it probably won’t change the way they are won.
Now the hard part starts. Zelenskiy has swept a deeply unpopular oligarch from the presidency not because he has something special to offer voters but because they were
deeply disappointed with Poroshenko’s failure to deliver on the promises implicit in the Euromaidan uprising in 2014. Poroshenko, a minister in the regime of ousted president Viktor Yanukovych, was still a member of the old guard despite his pro-western rhetoric, and ran an old style administration that ignored the fight against corruption and failed to reform the Ukrainian economy.
Going into the election Poroshenko had to persuade an electorate to vote for him in what is now officially the poorest country in Europe, where only 9% of the people trust the government and over 70% of the population think Ukraine is headed in the wrong direction.
A vote for Zelenskiy was not a vote for the comic but a vote against Poroshenko. Expectations are now high and given Zelenskiy’s inexperience in politics and the enormity of the
Volodymyr Zelenskiy was elected president on April 21 by 73% of the population, the biggest margin in Ukraine's history.
challenge facing him the possibility of disappointment is large. But no one cares for now. Even if Zelenskiy does nothing more, the result scores a number of victories. The debate between Zelenskiy and Poroshenko was little more than a mudslinging contest, but Russian viewers were asking “why don't we have debates?” The fact of Zelenskiy, a total outsider from politics, is also a revelation as it underscores that anyone can run for president – and win. A first in Eastern Europe where all the political elites come out of the political system.
In total, nearly 20mn voters took part in a country of 43mn people, a higher-than-expected turnout at 63%. International observers have described the elections as the cleanest in Ukraine’s history, with only minor violations recorded.
Ukraine unified
According to the exit poll, the results (to be confirmed in the coming days) had Zelenskiy winning a crushing victory of 73% to Poroshenko’s 25%.
That would give Zelensky the biggest win in Ukrainian history, ahead of the previous high of 62% won by Leonid Kravchuk in 1991, and by the largest margin ever, versus the previous high of 42% that was won by Poroshenko in 2014. It also makes Zelenskiy the only Jewish president (albeit non-practising) in the world other than the president of Israel.
Another of Zelenskiy’s victories is he can claim to have reunited the country and ended the divisive politics of previous Ukrainian elections that Poroshenko relied on in his “Army, Faith and Language” campaign. The only region Poroshenko won was Lviv in the far west, a long-term hotbed of Ukrainian nationalism that is Poroshenko’s base.
Zelenskiy has been criticised by Ukrainian nationalists for his mediocre command of Ukrainian as he hails from a Russian-speaking district in the west. But the fact that he
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