Editor’s Note: Election Watch is a regular update on the 2019 presidential and upcoming parliamentary elections. The project is supported by the National Endowment for Democracy. Content is independent of the donor.
Comedic actor Volodymyr Zelenskiy will be sworn in as president of Ukraine on May 20, nearly a month after his landslide win over President Petro Poroshenko.
With an earlier-than-expected date set for the inauguration, Zelenskiy will have enough time to seek new parliamentary elections as early as this summer. If he dissolves parliament by the legal deadline of May 27, the vote could take place on July 21 instead of the scheduled date of Oct. 27.
The latest poll shows that Zelenskiy’s neophyte party does better than the established ones and would win the majority of seats in parliament if the election was today.
In a survey by three pollsters — Social Monitoring, Rating, and the Ukrainian Institute of Sociological Research — released on May 16, Servant of the People got 39.9 percent of the votes of respondents who have made up their mind. Russia-friendly consortium Opposition Platform — Za Zhittya took second with 10.9 percent. Petro Poroshenko Bloc got 10.9 percent. Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna got 9.1 percent.
Two other parties — former SBU chief Ihor Smeshko’s Power and Dignity and Civic Position of former defense minister Anatoly Grytsenko — received 5.1 percent and 5 percent of the vote respectively, placing them within the minimum electoral threshold.
The Voice
Besides Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People, this parliamentary election promises several new parties.
After his disappointing experience as a lawmaker over a decade ago, Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, frontman of the popular Ukrainian rock band Okean Elzy, will try his chances in the Ukrainian legislature for the second time. But this time he will run with his own political party, which he announced on May 16: Holos, or “voice” and “the vote” in Ukrainian.
Vakarchuk has the advantage of wide public recognition and positions himself as a new face in politics running against corrupt political elites.
He also has introduced a team whose members don’t have strictly defined titles in the musician’s campaign office or promised spots on the party list, but will help him shape his program on a range of issues, from healthcare to economy and anti-corruption policy.
They have a lot of work to do. In the poll, Vakarchuk’s party received under 1 percent.
Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman’s party polls at even less, 0.7 percent. He hasn’t announced his party yet but has already said he will run for parliament separately from his long-time ally Poroshenko.
Without a party, Groysman has already launched his promotion campaign partially paid for with taxpayers money. His office has spent nearly Hr 36 million ($1.3 million) on billboards and print ads for “Groysman’s government,” according to a watchdog Chesno.
Simultaneously, new billboards for Groysman have been placed on behalf of public organization Ukrainian Strategy. Social media campaign GoGro so far is present only on Facebook and Telegram and targets a younger audience with memes and funny pictures, mixed with Groysman’s quotes.
Poroshenko’s Bloc is about to lose another ally, according to Novoye Vremya and Ukrainska Pravda media outlets. UDAR, the party of Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, is preparing to run independently.
Samopomich, once a strong political group of reformists that came third in the 2014 parliamentary election, is in crisis. A number of its prominent members left the party which now polls at around 2 percent.
Its leader, Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi, acknowledged the party’s mistakes and promised that two thirds of its list in the upcoming elections would be new people, selected through an open and transparent competition.
In a follow-up interview with the Kyiv Post, Sadovyi weighed in on the party’s re-election chances: “Samopomich will be in the next parliament because we are needed there.”
Giveaway
The delay with setting the inauguration date bought some time for the departing President Poroshenko to change military officials, appoint judges, and give away awards.
Besides distinguished Ukrainian doctors, teachers, and other professionals and public workers, Poroshenko showed his appreciation to his allies and administration staffers.
SBU chief Vasyl Hrytsak received the title of Hero of Ukraine. Poroshenko’s spokesman Svyatoslav Tsegolko, head of his election campaign office Oleg Medvedev, and adviser Ruslan Demchenko received the Orders of Merit.
