With Ukraine, and indeed the world, facing some very serious problems at the moment, now would not appear to be time to put a comedian in charge.
Or would it? In fact, according to the latest polls, Ukrainians may well elect comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy as the country’s president at the upcoming March 31 election.
And while Alexander J. Motyl, professor of political science at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, argues here that a Zelenskiy presidency would be a disaster for Ukraine, and a more experienced politician is required to take the helm, clearly a lot of Ukrainians don’t agree – and here’s why.
From a Ukrainian perspective, an experienced politician is a multimillionaire who has been around for years, long enough to be corrupted by the system, just like anyone who gets involved in Ukrainian politics.
So maybe inexperienced is what the country needs, people reckon.
Indeed, Ukrainian politicians, for the most part, tend to quickly and mysteriously become very wealthy while holding office, and no matter how reform-minded they might be before winning election, they seem to lose the will to fight corruption once they’re in power.
Zelenskiy is a comedian with no experience in political affairs whatsoever, but he’s also a millionaire, and is allegedly supported by the billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky.
Such facts count against him, putting him out of touch with regular people, and last but not least, making his bid for election look rather cynical to some. It’s much easier for him to appear legitimate and fresh when playing a humble, unknown history professor who wakes up as president in a television show that he himself co-wrote.
But what if he actually did do better than his predecessor – or even better than all of his predecessors? First, the polling data:
Zelenskiy is currently in the lead in the presidential race, according to the latest poll from the Razumkov Cente.
First round: Zelenskiy (all respondents: 17.5 percent; among those who will vote – 19 percent), Poroshenko (all respondents: 13.1 percent; among those who will vote – 16.8 percent), Tymoshenko (all respondents: 11.5 percent; among those who will vote – 13.8 percent).
Second round: Zelensky 32.2 percent versus Poroshenko 19.1 percent, Zelensky 28.7 percent versus Tymoshenko 18.6 percent, Tymoshenko 22.4 percent versus Poroshenko 20 percent.
Motyl, writing in an opinion piece for the Atlantic Council, sees Zelenskiy’s popularity as a sign of coming disaster, arguing that acting out the process of reforms on television is nothing like reality. He’s right about that, but that’s about the only thing he gets right in his piece.
“Ukraine’s relations with the West will atrophy, as Zelenskiy tries to figure out just which Western institutions and policymakers are of greatest importance to his country…” Motyl writes. “American and European policymakers will put their relations with Ukraine on hold. As will investors…”
But that is based on the erroneous and surprising assumption that a president works alone, that foreign countries won’t respect Ukraine’s democracy, and finally that investors’ interest – praised by Motyl earlier – will simply die off overnight.
This assumption is not backed up by evidence.
Even if the president changes, the civil and public servants working in government ministries will remain. Chances are that, knowing that he would need extra support, Zelenskiy would surround himself with like-minded people who know about policymaking and diplomacy – and hopefully not the experienced-kind that Motyl refers to.
And to be sure, Western leaders would never cut ties with Kyiv, no matter who is in charge.
“Ukraine’s oligarchs… will take advantage of Zelenskiy’s inexperience and inability to manage Ukraine…” Motyl continues. “So too will corrupt people at all levels of society and state. Ukraine’s GDP will go into decline, its shadow economy will grow, unemployment will rise, trade with Europe will decline, and the brain drain—especially among the young people who elected Zelenskiy – will accelerate.”
Of course, oligarchs are still there pulling many strings, corruption is omnipresent, the economy is far from doing well, and finally, those young people who have a chance to leave will do so no matter if they vote for Zelenskiy and he is elected – it will take years for the country to change, and young people are not patient enough to see it through.
Who can blame them?
“Putin and his minions in the breakaway regions of Ukraine’s southeast will be delighted with Ukraine’s progressive decay under Zelenskiy’s mismanagement… Putin will be sorely tempted to launch an armed attack on, say, Mariupol just after Zelensky’s inauguration.”
If there is one thing that time has taught the West, it is that Vladimir Putin is unpredictable, and that no one can assume what his next move will be.
If Motyl’s assumption that the West will simply stop supporting Ukraine as soon as Zelenskiy takes office were true, then of course, the country would be more vulnerable than it already is.
That being said, and even in that scenario, Ukraine has already achieved a lot on its own over the past five years. Invading Ukraine is hardly going to be as easy as it would have been just after the Euromaidan Revolution that ousted Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.
There’s no way to tell how Zelenskiy might react in the face of a Russian attack, but Ukraine’s armed forces are not as weak and unready as they used to be – that is a fact.
And Putin surely has no interest in a long-lasting war of attrition that could incentivize the West to jump in.
“It’s quite possible that Ukraine’s parliamentary elections in the fall will produce a deadlocked and fragmented legislature incapable of agreeing on anything.”
The assumption here is that the people – young according to Motyl – are not politically educated enough to understand that electing Zelenskiy as president is only half of the job.
Yet it is young people around the world that so often become the driving force of grassroots movements. If Zelenskiy is elected, there is at least as much chance that will be able to build a majority in parliament than not.
“Another EuroMaidan Revolution then becomes perfectly possible, perhaps even within a few months of Zelenskiy’s election… these scenarios are the worst that one can possibly imagine. But what makes them terrifying is that, with Zelenskiy as president, they can be imagined with relative ease. In contrast to just about anybody else – whether Poroshenko, Tymoshenko, or former Defense Minister Anatoliy Hrytsenko – as head of state.”
Contrary to what Motyl believes, it does not matter who will be in power next if he or she fails to deliver change, because in that case, all bets are off.
That could be Zelenskiy, Poroshenko, or Tymoshenko.
Motyl envisions all the worst scenarios possible and traces them all back to a Zelenskiy presidency, but it does lead one to question what his motives are.
If fact, since Zelenskiy is an unknown quantity, it’s hard to tell how he might perform as president.
But as for Zelenskiy being a disaster for Ukraine? Motyl offers scant evidence.
