Anti-establishment uprising to upend Ukraine parliament

Bloomberg

Ukraine’s anti-establishment political turn is poised to accelerate in Sunday’s snap general elections, with ex-comedian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s movement on track to sweep traditional forces out of power.
Half a decade after street protests that toppled Russian-backed leader Viktor Yanukovych, Zelenskiy has tapped into voter anger over the lack of progress in flushing dirty officials out of state institutions and companies. His Servant of the People party — named after the television show that propelled him to fame — built up a commanding lead in opinion polls in less than a year of existence, while more established rivals withered.
Like the main character of his television show, a teacher who is thrust into the position of head of state, Zelenskiy had no political experience before winning a landslide election in April. He has pledged to tackle corruption, energise the economy and resolve the violent conflict with Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine’s east that has killed at least 13,000 people since 2014.
Ukraine’s complex electoral system means that Zelenskiy’s party, whose popularity has more than tripled since his election, may need a coalition partner and will face strong opposition in a political arena that has humbled more experienced candidates, including his predecessor Petro Poroshenko.
“It will mean a new wave of structural and anti-corruption reforms,” said Volodymyr Fesenko, head of Penta research institute in Kiev. “His main problem will be to keep unity in his team.”
Opinion polls show Servant of the People poised to clinch more than 40 percent of the vote, a possible record in the
nation of 42 million, after Zelenskiy ignored opposition from the sitting parliament and called the elections three months early.
If it needs a partner to rule, the most likely candidate is another upstart party, Holos, led by Ukraine’s most popular rock singer Svyatoslav Vakarchuk. After voting Sunday in Kiev, Zelenskiy said he wanted to appoint a “professional economist” who hasn’t been a prime minister, parliament speaker or leader of a party, to lead the next government. That fits the description of former Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk, who has expressed interest.
Zelenskiy has rejected the idea of tie-ups with Poroshenko’s ruling party, which had about 6 percent in polls this month. Support for political forces sympathetic to Russia remains unchanged from five years ago. For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the two countries will mend ties despite the conflict, according to the transcript of an interview with American film director Oliver Stone.
“Rapprochement is inevitable,” Putin said. Voting was expected to end at 8 pm, when an exit poll of the party list winners making make up half of the chamber’s 450 seats, is expected.
The other half go to individual mandates, and those results will be expected later.
The latter portion of seats are being contested by oligarchs, sports stars, showbiz celebrities and activists with their own agendas, potentially complicating Zelenskiy’s promise to overhaul Ukraine.
Most candidates in Servant of the People are political neophytes. Still, some of Zelenskiy’s early appointments and business links to billionaire Igor Kolomoisky, whose television channel airs his shows, have drawn criticism that he won’t be able to escape the orbit of the country’s all-powerful oligarchs.
Zelenskiy has vowed to step up anti-corruption efforts after the previous administration adopted laws only under intense pressure from voters and foreign creditors.