Interview Concerning the Presidential Elections in Ukraine for Expresso Newspaper (Portugal)

Interview Concerning the Presidential Elections in Ukraine for Expresso Newspaper (Portugal): English-Language Text Published version in Portuguese April 21, 2019 Ivan Katchanovski, Ph.D. School of Political Studies & Department of Communication University of Ottawa Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada ikatchan@uottawa.ca (613) 407-1295

Official results of three exit polls show that in the second round of the presidential elections in Ukraine 73-75% of the voters voted for comedian Volodymyr Zelensky and 25-27% for incumbent president Petro Poroshenko. This is crushing defeat for Poroshenko, his divisive policies concerning the language, religion and the war in Donbas, and the economic hardship during his rule. Ukrainian voters demonstrated that Ukraine in not the same as Poroshenko and his policies. Poroshenko has admitted his defeat. A very large margin of victory of Zelensky makes it impossible to falsify the second round results. Four publicly known attempts to cancel elections failed. The latest one was on the eve of the second round, and involved a frivolous lawsuit by a Poroshenko-aligned election observer to cancel registration of Zelensky as a presidential candidate under claim that he bribed voters by offering them on Facebook free tickets to a stadium debate with Poroshenko.

The official exit poll results and early official vote count confirm significant regional differences in Ukraine. Zelensky gets 88% in the East, 86% in the South, 72% in the Center, and 56% in Western Ukraine according to one exit poll. Zelensky won in all regions with likely

1

exception of Galicia in the West. This former Austrian and Polish province is traditionally most nationalist, pro-Western, and anti-Russian region in Ukraine.

Zelensky’s impressive vote percentage belies the fact that many Ukrainian voters voted for him in order not to reelect Poroshenko. Zelensky is a popular TV comedian, and he is new to the Ukrainian politics and his policies and key appointments are not yet certain. He promised to end the war in Donbas, but his interviews suggest that he lacks deep understanding of this conflict and ways to resolve it. It also remains to be seen whether he would be willing to investigate political assassinations of Ukrainian journalists and politicians during the Poroshenko rule and the Maidan and Odesa massacres. His promises to fight corruption and crackdown on oligarchs also look like election rhetoric because his TV comedy show business and his presidential victory owe to a significant extent to an exiled oligarch, who along with his popular TV channel backed Zelensky and his successful election campaign.

Zelensky publicly stated that he supports EU and NATO memberships of Ukraine after referendums. But the EU and NATO memberships of Ukraine are unlikely in a foreseeable future, and a conflict with Russia and a conflict in Donbas are likely to continue even though they might become less intense if Zelensky would fulfill his promises.

2