Billionaire oligarch Petro Porshenko – who has been on all sides of Ukraine’s political world – got rewarded by the nation’s voters on May 25, who decided to make him their fifth president. He will be inaugurated on June 7.
Poroshenko won nearly 55 percent of the vote in a 21-candidate field in which the runner-up, ex-Prime Minister and ex-political prisoner Yulia Tymoshenko, scraped together less than 13 percent of the vote.
More than 18 million voters were sent many signals with their decisive mandate: they wanted to tell the world and Russia that they are united in electing a legitimate leader to replace Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted by the EuroMaidan Revolution on Feb. 22.
Even though Poroshenko has, at various times, supported the corrupt regimes of ex-Presidents Leonid Kuchma, Viktor Yushchenko and Yanukovych, he won credibility for taking an early and strong stand in support of the democratic revolution.
As president, ending the Kremlin-backed separatist war, improving Ukraine’s military readiness, reaching an accord with Russian President Vladimir Putin, prosecuting fugitive members of Yanukovych’s regime and recovering billions of dollars in stolen assets abroad are clearly among his top priorities.
But Poroshenko will find that his support will evaporate if he doesn’t battle corruption, modernize the economy, establish of rule of law and advance Ukraine’s integration with Europe.
The Ukrainian Central Electoral Commission has announced official preliminary results of the presidential election held on May 25. Billionaire confectionery magnate Petro Poroshenko got 54 percent of the vote, towering over a field of 21 candidates. His closest challenger was former premier Yulia Tymoshenko, who received 13 percent of the vote. Poroshenko, who is scheduled to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama in Warsaw Poland on June 3, is expected to be inaugurated on June 7 in Kyiv.
“The 55 percent of the vote Petro Poroshenko received is not an outright victory but rather a loan of the Ukrainian people’s trust, which they expect to be paid back promptly and in full,” Svitlana Zalishchuk, the executive director of Centre UA, a watchdog nongovernmental organization, wrote in an opinion piece.
