Ukraine set to elect TV comic as president in runoff fight

Bloomberg

Ukrainians are poised to elect the country’s most-watched comedian as president in a backlash at the ex-Soviet republic’s lack of progress since a revolution five years ago.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a 41-year-old TV comic who’s tapped into fury at the political class, was expected to comfortably defeat incumbent Petro Poroshenko at a runoff on Sunday, according to opinion polls. Despite a campaign that’s been heavy on style with only a sprinkling of policy proposals, his newcomer status won him twice as many votes as his rival in the first round.
“People are disillusioned with the old elite, which hasn’t proved itself after the revolution,” Yuriy Yakymenko, an analyst at the Razumkov Center for Economic and Political Studies in Kiev, said by phone. “Zelenskiy positioned himself as a populist politician opposed to the old authorities. He and the people are on one side and the old politicians on the other.”
Lying on a geopolitical fault line between Russia and the European Union, Ukraine has taken on a global significance since protesters kicked out Kremlin-backed Viktor Yanukovych in 2014 and Russia annexed Crimea. The West has provided billions of dollars in aid, while President Vladimir Putin continues to meddle, aiming to eventually regain influence.
Behind the rise of Zelenskiy, who stars in a TV show about a fictional president, is the kind of anti-establishment zeal that’s engulfed the continent and other parts of the world. He joins other comics-turned-politicians including Italy’s Beppe Grillo and Slovenia’s Marjan Sarec.
Zelenskiy promises to crack down on corruption, continue working with the International Monetary Fund to remake the economy and help bring peace to eastern Ukraine, where a war with Russian-backed forces persists. But specifics are hard to come by. Instead, he’s preferred glitz and drama, failing to meet a pledge to announce his picks for key posts before the deciding vote. “I’m not a politician,” Zelenskiy said at a stadium debate with his opponent. “I’m an ordinary person who came to break this system.”
That debate failed to shed more light on his agenda, and didn’t seem like it would swing the contest in any manner.
Poroshenko, a 53-year-old confectionery tycoon, has notched some successes in office, securing Ukrainians visa-free travel to the EU, helping create an Orthodox church independent of Russia and beefing up the army in the country of 42 million people.
But many reforms have been too slow, while crooked officials and those responsible for the deaths of protesters five years ago haven’t been punished.
Voters also blame him for their economic pain. A lackluster recovery from recession, a currency devaluation and hikes to utility tariffs have hurt.
Poroshenko sought to put a new spin on his campaign in recent weeks, directing a barrage of attacks at Zelenskiy, accelerating steps to get Ukraine’s anti-corruption court up and running, and promising to appoint younger people to his administration.