The winners of the first round of Ukraine’s presidential election held on March 31 – comedic actor Volodymyr Zelenskiy and incumbent President Petro Poroshenko – may have finally agreed to have a debate, although not a conventional one.
Both candidates exchanged dramatic statements, challenging the opponent to debate and setting conditions. The debate must take place before the April 21 runoff election.
On April 3, Zelenskiy released a video where he accepted Poroshenko’s earlier challenge to debate but set up bold conditions, among them: the debate is to take place at the country’s biggest sports arena NSC Olimpiyskiy, and both candidates must pass a medical check-up to verify they don’t have an alcohol or drug addiction.
Poroshenko responded with his own video in the early hours of April 4. He condemned Zelenskiy’s idea to debate at a stadium for trying to turn the debates into a show, but agreed to do it nevertheless.
“Let it be a stadium,” Poroshenko said.
The president didn’t stop there. As Zelenskiy was coming up with a response, Poroshenko’s campaign spokesman Oleg Medvedev announced that the president wanted to undertake that drug and alcohol test together with Zelenskiy on April 5.
The testing will take place on the morning of April 5 in the medical room of the NSC Olimpiyskiy stadium, according to Medvedev.
Zelenskiy’s campaign, in response, invited Poroshenko to undertake the drug and alcohol test at the Kyiv`s EuroLab laboratory on April 5.
Dmytro Razumkov, a political consultant and adviser for presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s, said that there are a lot of independent places where to undertake the drug and alcohol test in Ukraine.
“With all respect towards NSC Olimpiyskiy stadium, I think there are independent platforms. Therefore, tomorrow at 8 a.m. we invite our opponent and all of you (journalists) to EuroLab,” Razumkov said.
NSC Olimpiyskiy stadium belongs to the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine.
Zelenskiy’s other conditions included allowing all TV channels to broadcast the debate live, and journalists from all media being allowed to attend. Other than that, Zelenskiy demanded that Poroshenko publically declare that he was debating not a puppet or a clown, as Poroshenko and his supporters have called him, but a presidential candidate.
In his video response, Poroshenko didn’t apologize, but addressed Zelenskiy using the formal, polite term of address, “Volodymyr Oleksandrovych.”
“The rules of the debate are stipulated in the law on Presidential Elections – please read them,” Poroshenko said.
By law, the presidential candidates have to debate live on a state-owned TV channel, and do it two days before the runoff, which is April 19. However, the candidates aren’t banned from having other, informal debates. There is also no punishment for refusing to debate.
Later that day, Zelenskiy posted another video shot in the same style inviting Yulia Tymoshenko, who was running third in the first round with 13.4 percent, to moderate the debates.
“(You) did not support any (of the two) candidates. Can you be the guarantor of fair rules and equal opportunities at the debates?” Zelenskiy said in the video.
Zelenskiy called Poroshenko’s apologies unfit, however, he decided to accept them, he says in the video.
The Ukrainian public broadcaster already started preparing for the debates at the stadium.
Zurab Alasania, the head of the National TV and Radio Company, the public broadcaster, said on April 4, that the company had started negotiations with all sides, meaning the candidates and the unusual venue.
One question remains though: who will pay for the event.
Formal debates are paid for by the Central Election Commission, and money comes from the state budget. However, the Central Election Commission said on April 4 that this challenge appears to fall under “informal debates” and in this case, the two candidates would pay for the event from their campaign funds.
Both Zelenskiy and Poroshenko ignored the invitations from the Ukrainian public broadcaster UA Pershiy to debate before the first round of the election.
