If you live long enough, you see everything. The Kyiv Post, for the first time in its 24-year history that I can remember, received praise from a sitting Ukrainian president. Even though all of the previous four presidents couldn’t read English to our knowledge, and incumbent President Petro Poroshenko is the only one who can, this compliment still means a lot.
The occasion was Poroshenko’s April 15 meeting with hundreds of representatives of the business community, which is by and large in his corner for his re-election bid on April 21. If Poroshenko does, indeed, beat challenger Volodymyr Zelenskiy, it will cap a stunning comeback from three weeks ago, when Zelenskiy got almost twice as many votes (30 percent to 16 percent) as the president in the March 31 first-round vote.
When business editor Ilya Timtchenko asked Poroshenko in the InterContinental Kyiv hotel whether he would give an interview to the Kyiv Post (something we have been asking for five years to no avail) and whether he reads the newspaper, he said:
“Before, I haven’t read the Kyiv Post. But recently I started to read the Kyiv Post and want to say that you are doing a great job. I am aware that the Kyiv Post is very influential for the Western audience and I highly value when there is objective information with two points of view … and I am very thankful for this.”
This was a big breakthrough, in two ways:
Firstly, it marks the first time in four years that a Kyiv Post journalist has been allowed to ask Poroshenko a question. I’ve raised my hand at numerous presidential sit-downs with the business community, but never got called on. Our multiple requests for interviews have been ignored.
Secondly, it shows that Poroshenko is not holding any grudges – at least publicly — for what some readers think has been our overly critical opinions of his corruption-fighting record while, at the same time, supportive of his tough stance on the Kremlin and in leading the nation’s defense against Vladimir Putin’s war. At the least, the remark does show that he is trying to reach out to everyone, as he vowed to do after his first-round loss.
It reminded us of the time the first lady, Maryna Poroshenko, went on video to congratulate the Kyiv Post on its 20th anniversary in 2015, and when she said she was a Kyiv Post reader in 2014.
The Kyiv Post will continue to editorially be neutral in this race, endorsing neither candidate.
There’s plenty of anxiety now, with only six days left until Election Day, and we don’t want to fuel any more by taking sides. Moreover, since foreigners are part of the mix of this Ukrainian newspaper, an endorsement seems out of place. There’s also big anxiety for what the next five years, under whoever is elected president, will bring.
We wish Poroshenko had adopted more conciliatory messages long ago. Who knows, maybe he wouldn’t be in the fight for his political life as he is today.
But the fact that he has done so gives me hope that – no matter who wins on April 21 – unifying the nation might not be so hard after all. And that would make everyone a winner.
