LONDON – The Ukrainian presidential election was explained to Britons by two experts from Kyiv, journalist Volodymyr Yermolenko and think tank head Victor Andrusiv, during an event at Chatham House in London on March 21.
The Ukrainian presidential election’s campaign has gained momentum, and there is little time left for the candidates to persuade voters who are going to the polls on March 31. Currently, the ballot includes 39 names.
Comedian and actor Volodymyr Zelenskiy is leading the presidential race with more than 20 percent support. President Petro Poroshenko and ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko are battling for the second spot that will send them to the April 21 runoff election, while a large share of Ukrainians — 23 percent — are undecided.
‘Nobody knows who will win the elections’
Ukraine has proved itself as a democratic state capable of having a plurality of candidates, said Yermolenko, a philosopher, a writer and a journalist.
“Despite the war, despite Russian aggression, it continues to be a democracy. Nobody knows who will win the elections. The candidates are very nervous, the ambience in the candidates’ teams is very nervous because they are not sure who will win,” he said.
With a diversity of candidates come fewer opportunities for electoral fraud, said Yermolenko.
“Tymoshenko will control Poroshenko. (Billionaire Ihor) Kolomoisky will control all the others. (Candidate Anatoliy) Grytsenko will control Tymoshenko and Poroshenk,o and this is something very important.”
All of the key presidential candidates in Ukraine are backed by oligarchs, they said, but there is no consensus, said Andrusiv, executive director at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future: “We have a true democracy, because the oligarchs are in a war with each other. So there is no oligarchy consensus, that is why they compete with each other through their candidates.”
There is fear among the richest Ukrainians that they will lose their wealth: “They are really afraid of any change of power because they want guarantees. They are putting their stakes in every different basket, because of the uncertainty,” said Yermolenko.
In 2013, the wealth of the richest man in Ukraine, Rinat Akhmetov, who owns System Capital Management and controls the energy sector in Ukraine, was $22.3 billion. Today he has $6 billion, according to Bloomberg. In the presidential election, it appears that Akhmetov looks favorably on Oleksandr Vilkul, the deputy head of the Opposition Bloc faction in parliament, and Oleg Lyashko, the leader of Radical Party faction.
Kolomoisky, a former Dnipropetrovsk Oblast governor and former owner of PrivatBank, is worth $1.1 billion, while in 2012 he was worth $3 billion according to Forbes. He and his business partner lost access to significant assets after a freeze by High Court of London. Kolomoisky is widely believed to back Tymoshenko, and Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the political satirist and leaves the Ukrainian film studio Kvartal 95.
As long as oligarchs control the crucial part of the national economy, Ukraine’s future depends on their behavior, said Yermolenko: “Their logic is also the survival logic. They still consider themselves as poor people, Soviet people who need to accumulate wealth.”
He said that “the key dilemma is whether they will understand that the only survival method is to integrate themselves into the world economy and integrate into production chains not be dependent on the state – to go global. And this is a chance for the Ukrainian economy. If they do not understand it, that will be a very bad scenario.”
There are two possible outcomes, according to Andrusiv. The first one is status quo as the oligarchs continue to fight with each other for the local influence and budget money. The second, and progressive option, is if they widen their views on doing business and decide to support reforms to create a better business climate in the future.
Zelenskiy phenomenon
Zelenskiy’s front-runner status is gaining lots of attention. The fact that he could be elected president, after playing a Ukrainian schoolteacher who became a president at the TV series “Servant of the People,” is the talk of the race.
Some experts compare Zelenskiy to the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who also was an actor before becoming the state’s leader. Others disagree, arguing that Reagan was politically literate, unlike Zelenskiy
Britons asked whether “Servant of the People” was created for his future political campaign. “It is not that he was such a kind of a strategic guy so he was making the movie to enter the elections,” reassured Andrusiv. “I think that this was kind of an experiment; initially, maybe a joke.”
Yermolenko advised the event’s attendants to watch Zelenskiy’s TV series to better understand the phenomenon of the comedian’s success.
“You will just fall in love with the guy. I mean, immediately. The person rides a bicycle, tries to fight against corruption,” said Yermolenko, describing the TV character.
Ukrainians do not have illusions about Zelenskiy and clearly distinguish his acting role with real life, argued Andrusiv.
“The character in the movie is riding a bicycle, but Zelensky is driving Range Rover. People do understand that,” he said.
Zelensky is leading for another reason, said Andrusiv. The secret of his success is that he has never been involved in politics: “He has never earned money on the budget. He was not corrupt. So he is opposite to Poroshenko and the others. This is the answer to the question of what Ukrainians want – they want anti-Poroshenko.”
“The typical populism doesn’t work anymore,” said Yermolenko.
Zelenskiy is not even promising anything to his supporters, said Yermolenko. “One of his taglines is ‘no promises, no excuses,’ so he is really a trend-setter in political marketing.”.
Zelenskiy is popular among young people and Russian-speaking people from southeastern Ukraine who, after the beginning of Russia’s war in the eastern Donbas, realized that they no longer support Russia but do not know whom to support, the experts said.
Presidential election will not change much
The presidential elections may not be the most crucial for Ukraine this year. The parliamentary elections in October are seen as even more important.
But the next president will influence the autumn result
“Our institute’s analysis shows that Ukraine will experience a terrible crisis in the next two years, regardless of the president’s name,” said Andrusiv, citing Russia’s war and economic problems. “Annually we have to increase the defense budget, this means that every time it rises by 20 or 40 billion hryvnias, this reduces the county’s budget,” said Andrusiv.
Russia is attentively watching Ukrainian elections since pro-Russian candidates are not likely to win. Yermolenko believes Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategy towards Ukraine is just to weaken the nation if he can’t influence who gets elected.
Yermolenko said: “I think that Russia will attack only when Ukraine is weak. Putin once said in an interview that he will overtake only when he sees that there is nobody in the oncoming lane.”
Regardless of the presidential candidates’ promises on Crimea and Russian-controlled Donbas, Yermolenko remains pessimistic: “Let us look at the other conflicts initiated by Russia. There is no example of a territory annexed or seized by Russia that was returned back to the state it belongs to.”
Yermolenko assessed the top presidential candidates’ programs as generally unrealistic and suggested that “without international pressure and without the change in Russian position, nothing will move forward” for Ukraine in regaining control of Crimea and the entire Donbas.
