While the two presidential candidates agreed last week that their debate will take place at Kyiv’s Olympic Stadium, they still can’t agree on the date.
President Petro Poroshenko late on April 7 said at Ukraina TV channel that he would wait for Zelenskiy at the stadium on April 14 between 7 and 8 p.m.
Political satirist Volodymyr Zelenskiy early on April 8 claimed in his Telegram channel he would meet with Poroshenko of April 19 and asked his supporters to offer questions to ask the president.
“I think the people of Ukraine in five years have got many questions to Poroshenko which you cannot ask him, but I can,” Zeleskiy said in a video posted on Telegram.
He added that he will also ask Poroshenko why his loyalist Oleh Hladkovskiy and his son Ihor Hladkovskiy, who are under investigation over massive embezzlement in the defense sector, haven’t been arrested yet.
A law requires holding the debate between the candidates on April 19, the Friday before Election Day. They should take place at a studio of UA Pershiy state TV channel, said Zurab Alasania, head of the Ukrainian National Television Company on April 5. All the other meeting between the candidates would be deemed “political agitation,” he added.
The idea to have a debate at a stadium, which has more than 70,000 seats, was offered by Zelenskiy on April 2 in a video address to Poroshenko.
Zelenskiy, who received 30 percent of votes in the March 31 election first round against less than 16 percent of Poroshenko, has more at risk in having a debate since he is already the clear front-runner.
But for veteran politician Poroshenko, the debate is one of few chances to attract more supporters and persuade those who voted for Zelenskiy that the comedian is not ready to be president.
So Poroshenko agreed to come to the stadium and said there should be several rounds of debate. “Stadium it is,” Poroshenko said late on April 2, in a phrase that has become a meme.
Zelenskiy then responded Poroshenko with a video offer to invite former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who finished in third place on March 31 with 13 percent, as moderator. Tymoshenko, however, ignored this offer.
On April 4, Poroshenko again in a video address pressured Zelenskiy to come to the debate without any additional conditions. “Be a man, come to the debate,” he said.
The argument about the debate was added by many emotional arguments in social media between the supporters of Poroshenko and Zelenskiy.
On April 5 both Poroshenko and Zelenskiy also passed the blood tests on alcohol and drugs at the clinics loyal to them to show they are healthy and refute speculation about abuse of drugs and alcohol.
Political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said on Facebook that the debate between Poroshenko and Zelenskiy have in fact “already started remotely” in the form of video addresses. He wasn’t sure, however, a real face-to-face debate between them would ever take place.
Both Poroshenko and Zelenskiy ignored the debate held before the first round of the election.
Almost 74 percent of Ukrainians said in late March that debate between the candidates is important, a joint poll by Democratic Initiatives Foundation and Kyiv International Institute of Sociology revealed.
