Olympic Stadium, Ukraine’s biggest sports arena in Kyiv, once again proved to be the country’s main stage, when on April 14 President Petro Poroshenko, who is seeking re-election, held a campaign rally at the arena.
Poroshenko wanted the event to be a debate with his competitor and presidential frontrunner Volodymyr Zelenskiy. However, Zelenskiy declined Poroshenko’s invitation and instead set a different date for the debate – April 19, two days before the second-round election where the two will compete for the presidency.
So the event turned into Poroshenko’s campaign rally. He gave a speech, answered questions, took selfies with supporters, and even sang and danced a little bit. Poroshenko emphasized and mocked Zelenskiy’s absence, hinting at him being scared of debating him.
The two candidates’ “debate over debate” began hours after the March 31 first-round election ended and primary results became public, revealing that Poroshenko, who received just under 16 percent of the vote, together with comedian Zelenskiy, who received over 30 percent, advanced to the second round scheduled for April 21.
Poroshenko immediately said he wanted a public debate with Zelenskiy – something that didn’t happen before the first round. Zelenskiy responded with a surprising proposal to hold the debate at Ukraine’s biggest stadium instead of a TV studio, which Poroshenko initially accepted.
But the two candidates couldn’t come to terms on when to hold the debates, Poroshenko offering April 14, and Zelenskiy – April 19. Although Zelenskiy said he won’t come to the stadium on April 14, Poroshenko still arrived and spoke next to an empty rostrum, emphasizing Zelenskiy’s absence.
A famous journalist and TV host Andriy Kulikov was invited to moderate the debate in the press center of NSC Olimpiyskiy, which ended up to be a press conference of Poroshenko.
Poroshenko set a time limit of 45 minutes for Zelenskiy to show up at the stadium citing that it’s enough to get to NSC Olimpiyskiy from any part of town, while Kulikov was permitting questions from the floor.
Among the most interesting questions were questions concerning the president’s business, broken promises, his campaign ads that featured Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, and foreign relations.
Poroshenko was asked why he didn’t sell Roshen, a confectionery company and the center of his business empire. When he ran for president in 2014, Poroshenko promised to sell his business. Instead, he said he passed it to a blind trust, which means he still owns the company but doesn’t manage it.
“(Before the 2014 election), you said you’d sell Roshen, but you just put it into a blind trust. Why should we believe you now?” a journalist asked Poroshenko.
The president responded that he sold all assets that had drawn interest from investors, giving an example of Kuznya on Rybalsky, which was sold, albeit only in 2018, to Serhiy Tigipko, a businessman and ex-politician who served in the government of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych.
About Roshen, which was handed over in January 2016 into a blind trust for four years, Poroshenko repeated that he wasn’t managing his companies during his time in office.
Poroshenko commented on his dubious campaign billboards, in which he appeared next to Putin with a slogan “April 21, a decisive choice,” which drew a lot of criticism. Poroshenko said that he wasn’t comparing Zelenskiy to Putin, but “everyone knows that Putin wants anyone except Poroshenko to be president.”
He was then asked about a possible win of Zelenskiy, who is leading in the polls.
“If, God forbid, Zelenskiy becomes president, it will be the people’s choice,” said Poroshenko.
Even though moderator Kulikov stated that the president will have no more than 3 minutes to respond to each question, Poroshenko often drifted away to talk more broadly on certain topics, such as Ukraine’s foreign politics.
The president spoke about his European course, one of the main points of his campaign, saying that Ukraine has a real chance to become a member of NATO and European Union. He again reassured the public that Ukraine by 2023 will ask for the road map to join both organizations, if he is reelected.
A number of people in the audience cheered after hearing the president, with the same people cheering after almost all answers, during the debate turned into a press conference.
While Zelenskiy, as expected, didn’t show up, the president once again stated that debates are important and invited Zelenskiy to join him on the next day, April 15, at a political talk show on ICTV, one of Ukraine’s leading TV channels.
While journalists gathered to leave, the president was far from done. The president took the stage near the stadium for the second time, the first time briefly stopping by before his one-man debate. The president danced on stage, sang a Ukrainian folk song rewritten to take a jab at Zelenskiy, and invited everyone into the stadium.
“We’re near the stadium, maybe he (Zelenskiy) is inside,” said Poroshenko, leading the crowd inside the stadium.
Supporters of Poroshenko obediently sat in the stadium, with the president holding a rally calling out Zelenskiy and oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, who is alleged of being associated with the presidential candidate.
The crowd was overwhelmed, with Poroshenko’s monologue interrupted by Glory to Ukraine chants, voluntary singing of the national anthem, cursive chants towards Putin as well as Poroshenko’s last name on multiple occasions.
