Page 15 - bne_newspaper_February_08_2019

Eastern Europe
February 8, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 15
Ukrainian comedian Zelensky leads presidential race
Sergei Kuznetsov in Kyiv
Volodymyr Zelensky, a comic who plays the role of a spoof president in a Ukrainian televised show, has unexpectedly become the favourite to win the nation's presidential elections in March, according to two new credible polls released on January 31.
Among decided voters, Zelensky has 23.0% support, compared to 16.4% for President
Petro Poroshenko and 15.7% for ex-PM Yulia Tymoshenko, according to a poll conducted among 11,000 respondents between January 16 and 29 by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), the Razumkov Center and the Socis Center for Social and Market Research.
Zelensky’s lead was confirmed by a second poll released the same day. Among decided voters, Zelenskiy has 19.0% support, compared to 18.2% for Tymoshenko and 15.1% for Poroshenko, according to the Rating Sociological Group, which conducted its survey among 6,000 respondents between January 16 and 24.
At the same time, about 14.4% remain undecided, compared to 20.9% in Rating’s December poll. Both polls indicated that more voters now believe Zelensky has a legitimate chance to become president.
Zelensky, a close associate of controversial Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, was officially registered as a presidential candidate by the nation's Central Election Commission (CEC) on
January 30. The comedian was nominated by his newly-created party The Servant of the People.
"A shock"
"The candidacy of comedian Zelensky is no longer a joke," Zenon Zawada at Kyiv-based brokerage Concorde Capital wrote in a note on February
1. "His [...] surge in the polls comes as a shock
to Ukraine’s establishment, turning the entire election landscape upside down."
The January polls indicate that Zelensky is getting the major portion of undecided voters, who see nothing positive in the establishment candidates, Zawada added. "It appears that many Ukrainians were waiting for Zelensky to officially declare his candidacy — which he did on national television on New Year’s Eve — before voicing their support. It also appears that Ukrainians
are so dissatisfied with their elites that they’re willing to trust an actor with no political experience, who merely plays the role of a noble, responsible president."
Zawada believes that Zelensky’s candidacy creates "enormous" destabilisation risks for the country. "We had the view that Poroshenko would have been able to 'massage' the election result
to win given that Tymoshenko was his only main rival. He won’t be able to do that so easily with two competitors who have enough support between them to challenge vote manipulations and organise mass protests," the expert added.