Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has announced he will run for a second term in the presidential election on March 31, confirming the near-universal expectation that he would seek re-election.
Poroshenko made the announcement at the gathering of his supporters and members of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, which was held at the International Exhibition Center in Kyiv on Jan. 29.
“The feeling of a deep responsibility before Ukraine, its past and future generation, made me decide to run for re-election,” he said.
It was no secret that Poroshenko would seek re-election: the president has been leading an intense promo campaign for several months, including placing an abundance of campaign advertisements on billboards. But Poroshenko delayed his announcement until one week before the Feb. 3 deadline for candidates’ registration.
Poroshenko delivered a 40-minute speech, where he addressed his achievements and made promises for the next five years, including applying for European Union membership in 2024 and trying to become a member of NATO.
“I’m asking the voters to authorize me to guarantee the Euro-Atlantic integration of Ukraine, the independence of Ukraine, the return of Ukraine’s territories,” Poroshenko said.
His speech was preceded by a pompous video that counted the victories of Poroshenko’s presidency, including a visa-free regime with EU countries in 2017 and the unification of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in 2018.
“2019 is the year when either Poroshenko will win in Ukraine — or Putin will,” a narrator declared in the video.
Poroshenko will run as a self-nominated candidate, not as his party’s nominee.
Despite the grandiose event and triumphant speech, Poroshenko will have a hard time winning his second term.
In fact, the president may not even make it the runoff. Different polls put him anywhere between the second and fifth place in the race, giving him a support rating of up to 15 percent. An even bigger problem is Poroshenko’s anti-rating of some 50 percent. This means that roughly 50 percent of respondents say they will not vote for him under any circumstance, which threatens his chances in the runoff.
The current presidential frontrunner is ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, with whom Poroshenko already clashed in the 2014 election. Back then, in the wake of the EuroMaidan Revolution and with the war in eastern Ukraine just beginning, Poroshenko landed a victory without a runoff, earning 54.7 percent against Tymoshenko’s 12.8 percent.
Symbolic gathering
For his announcement, Poroshenko chose a symbolic date for the Ukrainian nation — a day of remembrance of the killing of dozens of students, who fought to defend Kyiv from the much larger Bolshevik army near Kruty railway station in 1918.
Poroshenko’s forum, called “From Kruty to Brussels. We Are Going Our Own Way,” was full of historical symbols and references to patriotism. The title linked the nationalistic movements of the early 20th century to Ukraine’s aspirations to join the European Union.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announces his bid for re-election at a meeting of his supporters in Kyiv on Jan. 29, 2019. (Volodymyr Petrov)
The top attendees of Poroshenko’s convention included Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman and Parliamentary Speaker Andriy Parubiy.
Another important guest was absent — Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, who, according to media reports, was expected to attend but canceled his plans in the last moment due to the abrupt aggravation of an old injury.
Instead of joining Poroshenko’s big rally, Klitschko, Poroshenko’s long term supporter, stayed in Austria to receive medical care. That country also hosts oligarch Dmitry Firtash, who has claimed in court that he facilitated Poroshenko’s election in 2014, persuading Klitschko to drop his presidential ambitions in favor of Poroshenko.
This time, Klitschko recorded a brief video address where he says he supports Poroshenko’s re-election.
Parubiy took the stage after the Poroshenko’s announcement, and said that Poroshenko and the People’s Front “remain like-minded.” The People’s Front, of which Parubiy is one of the top members, is the second biggest party in parliament with 80 seats, and Poroshenko Bloc’s coalition partner.
Parubiy’s speech – and the fact that he was the first one to speak after the president – came as a surprise for many. Headlined by ex-Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, and Head of Security and Defense Council Oleksandr Turchynov, the People’s Front and Poroshenko have often found themselves frenemies in the past five years.
Parubiy was followed by Groysman, who also said he supported Poroshenko’s re-election, and an emotional speech by Deputy Speaker of Parliament Iryna Gerashchenko.
Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko took the stage and warned that as a public official he can’t promote a candidate. He then basically did so, praising Poroshenko’s vector and saying that “Ukraine needs no new courses,” in a clear reference to the election program of Poroshenko’s rival Tymoshenko, “The New Course for Ukraine.”
