KIEV: Comedian Volodymyr Zelensky is favourite to become Ukraine’s president after results Monday showed him dominating a first-round vote despite many initially dismissing his candidacy as a joke.
The 41-year-old’s political experience had been limited to playing the president in a TV show but he leapfrogged establishment candidates amid public frustration over corruption and a stalling economy.
Results published on April Fools’ Day — an irony not lost on Ukrainians on social media — showed Zelensky taking 30 per cent in Sunday’s first round, almost double the 16 per cent vote share of incumbent Petro Poroshenko.
The two will meet in a run-off vote on April 21 after the 80 per cent of counted ballots showed ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko and dozens of other candidates falling out of the race.
If Zelensky wins the leadership, as polls and analysts suggest, he will take the reins of one of the poorest countries in Europe — a nation of 45 million people fighting Russian-backed separatists in its industrial east.
“I want to thank all the Ukrainians who came out and voted in seriousness,” the high-spirited actor told supporters after exit polls showed a better-than-expected result late Sunday.
Zelensky had topped opinion polls for weeks and the main question going into the weekend vote was who between Tymoshenko and Poroshenko would meet him in the second round.
But the size of his lead came as a surprise.
Poroshenko said the result was a “harsh lesson” for him personally and for the authorities as a whole.
Tymoshenko, who came to international prominence as a face of the 2004 Orange Revolution and was taking her third tilt at the presidency, said the exit polls were “dishonest” and asked supporters to wait for final results.
A monitoring mission by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe said Monday the vote had been in general “well-organised, smooth, transparent and efficient”.
“Observers noted a few procedural errors and very few serious violations during the vote count,” it said in a statement. — AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
