For months now, my conversation-starting question with all Ukrainians I meet is: Who will be the next president?
Their answers provide plenty of ammunition for both possibilities about whether President Petro Poroshenko will win or lose re-election on March 31.
I really don’t know.
But here are five reasons why Poroshenko will win:
1. Weakness of opposition: Most people I ask do not like Poroshenko and do not want him to be re-elected. But then I follow up with two questions: “Who will you vote for then?” and “Who will win?” Then it becomes clear that Poroshenko has a real shot of winning another five-year term. Many answer “no one” or “I don’t know.” When you ask people to run down the names, one by one, it becomes even clearer how undecided people are and how unpopular and weak Poroshenko’s opponents are. Few people I know trust ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy is emerging as the protest vote. Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadoviy and ex-Defense Minister Anatoly Hrytsenko tend to get spoken of favorably, but most think they have no chance of winning. Also, the minority of people I know who support Poroshenko do so ardently, arguing he is the best hope for the nation.
2. International support: Try to find a Western ambassador or many in Ukraine’s diaspora who have been critical of Poroshenko lately. It isn’t happening much at all. Many Western ambassadors simply have gone silent, calculating that Poroshenko is the best of a bad lot. They may call it neutrality, but ignoring the shortcomings of this administration is actually giving silent consent to them. Poroshenko’s pitch of “army, language, faith” plays even better with Ukrainians living abroad, some of whom are detached from the daily injustices endured by Ukrainians. The biggest danger, however, is that the West will soften its vigilance in demanding a free and fair election, in hopes of a Poroshenko win, as it did when Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma cheated their way to victories over communists in 1996 and 1999, respectively. Still, the fact that so many in the West and among the diaspora like or at least accept Poroshenko – the first English-speaking Ukrainian president – shows strengths that benefit Ukraine. He gives great speeches and has a knack for being in the right place at the right time. The independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, an important development that he championed, came less than three months before the election. He might ride “tomos” – the document granting independence – all the way to victory.
3. Nation at war: Poroshenko hasn’t brought the nation closer to peace and he’s not fighting the war against Vladimir Putin – the soldiers and the nation’s citizens get the credit for doing this. But psychologically it could be hard for people to vote for a leadership change in the midst of war, especially when a leading rival, Tymoshenko, is suspected of pro-Kremlin sympathies. If his supporters succeed in framing the contest as patriotic defender vs. the enemy, rather than against his domestic opponents, he wins in a landslide.
4. Visa-free regime: Let’s face facts – objectively, this is a success, an undeniable accomplishment. The ability of Ukrainians to travel freely, however, will lead to two very dangerous developments for Ukraine’s political elite as: A) More Ukrainians lose hope and decide to find ways to live abroad permanently and B) More traveling Ukrainians realize how much better life can be and return home, energized to demand more changes.
5. EU free trade agreement: While Russia sadly remains Ukraine’s single largest investor and trade partner, Ukraine’s free trade agreement with the European Union provides a big impetus for the westward shift and escaping Russia’s smothering embrace, bringing eventual prosperity.
And here are five reasons why Poroshenko will lose:
1. Betrayals: Many Ukrainians who entrusted him to break up the oligarchy, fight corruption, establish justice and end Russia’s war are so angry or disappointed that he failed to deliver that they will vote for anybody but Poroshenko.
2. Petty micromanager: A president’s personality traits come across clearly after five years. Those who have crossed Poroshenko have stories of his hot temper, his micromanaging style and his vindictiveness. He seems to equate criticism of his policies with opposition to him personally. This is unbecoming of a strong democratic leader. One gets the impression that if hundreds of hours of audiotapes of his private conversations were released, the way they were during ex-President Leonid Kuchma’s time, the current inhabitant of Bankova Street would sound just as petulant and tyrannical. Poroshenko also avoids independent journalists, critics and hard questions like the plague.
3. Resistance to authoritarianism: Ukrainians have shown a strong desire to limit the powers of any one individual. And the most democratic and peaceful way of doing so is by voting out the incumbent, which Ukrainians have done time and again. Many people worry that Poroshenko will be more autocratic and less democratic in a second term, giving these voters reason to try someone else.
4. Maldives vacation: Poroshenko’s $500,000, six-day Maldives vacation during the 2018 winter holidays showed how disconnected the billionaire oligarch is from the people he governs, the majority of whom have average yearly wages of less than $5,000. His detachment manifests itself in indifference to the mass exodus of Ukrainians, numbering 2-3 million people, who have fled abroad for work to escape injustice and lack of opportunity at home. The Maldives vacation served to remind ordinary people that he is not one of them – that he is the guy who helped found Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions and served as the disgraced ex-president’s economy minister.
5. Oligarchy: When push comes to shove, Poroshenko has shown himself to be more interested in protecting than ending the status quo of oligarchic control of politics and the economy. Western pressure, which has relented, and civil society, which is under attack, deserve much of the credit for the big improvements that have taken place under Poroshenko’s watch. He appears to have aligned himself with many unsavory characters in his bid to get reelected, and voters will punish him for it.
