Editor’s Note: Election Watch is a regular update on the state of the presidential race in Ukraine. The country will elect its next president on March 31, 2019, with a possible runoff on April 21. The Election Watch project is supported by the National Endowment for Democracy. The donor doesn’t influence the content. Go to kyivpost.com for more election coverage.
Two weeks before the March 31 elections, it is clear that there won’t be a repeat of the 2014 election, when Ukraine elected its president in a one-round vote. None of the candidates have anything close to 50 percent of the votes in the polls, meaning that there will be a runoff with two top candidates on April 21.
And intriguingly, it’s still far from clear who will make it into the runoff.
Unlike the previous presidential elections in Ukraine, there are no two clear front-runners in this one. There are three leaders, but none of them is guaranteed the spot in the runoff.
According to the latest poll by the Rating Sociological Group, released on March 11, political satirist and producer Volodymyr Zelenskiy remained in the lead in the race: 24.7 percent of decided voters said they backed him.
Ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko came second, with 18.3 percent supporting her. President Petro Poroshenko polled third, with 16.8 percent support.
Poroshenko and Tymoshenko have been fighting for the second spot for weeks.
Another poll, released on March by the Socis Group, had Poroshenko ahead of the Batkivshchyna leader: he polled 19.6 percent against her 14.8 percent.
But the uncertainty doesn’t end with Poroshenko and Tymoshenko. While it might seem that Zelenskiy is guaranteed a spot in the runoff, low turnout might hurt him substantially: his voter base is younger than that of his rivals, and young Ukrainians are less active when it comes to voting.
The three-way race is in contrast to the previous presidential elections, which usually had two clear leaders. In 2010, it was Viktor Yanukovych and Tymoshenko. In 2004, Yanukovych and Victor Yushchenko. Even in 1999, Leonid Kuchma and Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko had a definitive lead, getting 36 and 22 percent in the first round, with the next closest participant, the Socialist Party’s Oleksandr Moroz, way behind on 11 percent.
Three months ago, the 2019 election looked set to be the same — a repeat of the 2014 clash between Petro Poroshenko, seeking re-election, and Tymoshenko, trying for a third time to get into the Bankova Street office. But then, just before midnight on Dec. 31, Zelenskiy entered the race and claimed the lead.
President’s rough patch
Poroshenko has been having a rough couple of weeks.
The president has been suffering from the fallout from an investigative journalism team’s report, which in late February revealed a long-running corruption scheme to embezzle millions of dollars from state-owned defense enterprises. The son of Poroshenko’s top ally Oleh Hladkovskiy was allegedly one of the masterminds of the scheme. Hladkovskiy and his son have both denied wrongdoing.
The report hit Poroshenko hard. The president has made the military one of the three pillars of his conservative re-election campaign slogan — the famous “Army, language, faith” triad.
Back in 2015, Poroshenko appointed his business partner Hladkovskiy, who had no experience in the military or in public service, to the highest defense body: the National Security and Defense Council. And though he fired Hladkovskiy in the wake of the scandal, many thought it wasn’t enough.
Among them were the ultranationalist political party National Corps and their associated vigilante organization, the National Militia.
On March 9, activists of the National Corps rallied to demand the prosecution of Hladkovskiy in central Kyiv. The rally descended into violent clashes with the police guarding the building of the Presidential Administration.
Later that day, the activists interrupted a Poroshenko campaign rally in Cherkasy, trying to break through the police cordon to the president. Poroshenko had to break off his speech and leave.
And the nationalist organization says it isn’t going to stop there. On March 11, the National Corps presented an ultimatum to Poroshenko: they would keep protesting unless Hladkovskiy is arrested.
The timing of the threat is bad for Poroshenko, who has been vigorously campaigning around the country, and now risks having his events disrupted by violent protesters.
Oligarch’s echo
Tapped phone calls and leaked messages are never in short supply during an election season in Ukraine.
An alleged phone call between Tymoshenko and the notorious oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky was leaked online on March 12. In it, Tymoshenko allegedly calls to wish Kolomoisky a happy birthday. The oligarch, living in self-imposed exile in Israel, indeed celebrated his birthday in February. Tymoshenko’s press service neither denied nor confirmed the authenticity of the call.
Tymoshenko’s opponents used the alleged phone call recording as evidence that Tymoshenko is backed by the oligarch.
The head of the 135-member Bloc of Petro Poroshenko faction in parliament, lawmaker Artur Gerasymov, played the tape in parliament on March 12.
Kolomoisky’s alleged financial support for Tymoshenko has been one of the most notorious rumors of this campaign. The oligarch, who is in opposition to Poroshenko, denies supporting Tymoshenko financially but said in an interview in December she was likely to win the presidency.
Kolomoisky is also connected, through his media business, to Zelenskiy — something that the actor’s opponents use as one of the main arguments against him.
If the voices on the tape indeed belong to Tymoshenko and Kolomoisky, it does sound like the two are up to something together. The woman sounding like Tymoshenko thanks her interlocutor for “everything you’re doing for me.”
Fresh approach
The election campaign can deliver laughs, too.
Poroshenko’s campaign took a fresh approach in trying to attract voters — by persuading them that Poroshenko is the best fit for Ukraine based on his Zodiac sign.
The campaign newspaper distributed in Kharkiv on March 8 had a horoscope section that looked into which Zodiac signs are compatible with Ukraine. The country was assigned the sign of the Virgo, based on the fact that its independence was proclaimed on Aug. 24.
Unsurprisingly, the newspaper said the best match for Ukraine was a ruler born under the sign of Libra. It went on to specify that Poroshenko is a Libra.
The horoscope also explained that the least compatible with Ukraine (a Virgo) are the signs of Aquarius, Scorpio, and Sagittarius. These signs correspond with the birthdates of Poroshenko’s top competitors in the race: Zelenskiy, Tymoshenko, and ex-Defense Minister Anatoliy Grytsenko.
