Editor’s Note: Election Watch is a regular update on the state of the presidential race in Ukraine. The country will elect its next president in the runoff vote on April 21. The Election Watch project is supported by the National Endowment for Democracy. The donor doesn’t influence the content. Go to kyivpost.com for more election coverage.
Only three weeks separate the first round of the presidential election from the April 21 runoff vote, and most of this window of opportunity has already passed.
After an eventful first week when election finalists President Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelenskiy exchanged video messages and took medical tests to prove they are not drug addicts or alcoholics, the campaign has slowed down.
With the arrival of the first pre-runoff polls on April 11, it appears that the gap between frontrunner Zelenskiy and Poroshenko is simply too big for the incumbent to close in time.
Polls
Political satirist Volodymyr Zelenskiy may receive 71.4 percent of the vote in the second round of the presidential election, according to a poll conducted on April 5-10 by the Rating sociological group. In contrast, Poroshenko may take only 28.6 percent of the vote.
The results reflect the preferences of voters who told the pollster that they will cast their ballot and have already picked their candidate. Additionally, some 15 percent said they were still undecided, and nearly 10 percent did not want to reveal their choice.
The poll was the first survey published after the March 31 first-round election, where Zelenskiy won with 30 percent of the vote, and Poroshenko came in second with nearly 16 percent.
According to the poll, 61 percent of respondents now believe Zelenskiy will be Ukraine’s next president. Only 17 percent said it would be Poroshenko.
Based upon Rating’s data, Zelenskiy will win all of Ukraine’s regions and lead across all age groups, although his support is highest in the south, east, and center of Ukraine.
Poroshenko still maintains high support in western Ukraine (34 percent) and is popular among people in the 50- to 59-year-old age bracket (25 percent support).
Debating debates
Since the night of the first-round, the main question has been: Will Poroshenko and Zelenskiy debate?
Neither candidate showed up for the presidential debates held before the first round by public broadcaster UA Pershyi. But with the runoff ahead, both grew keen on the idea of a debate.
However, one week before the second round, all the public has heard is Poroshenko and Zelenskiy exchanging video addresses and making statements, setting conditions for the debate and blaming the opponent for chickening out.
The candidates seemed to have settled on the location: Kyiv’s Olimpiyskiy Stadium, which Zelenskiy proposed and Poroshenko accepted. But setting the date has become a stumbling block.
Poroshenko offered to debate on April 14, one week before the runoff vote, and to hold three debates covering different issues. But Zelenskiy prefers a later date: April 19.
To make matters stranger, Poroshenko is about to hold a campaign event at Olimpiyskiy on April 14 anyway. He called on his voters to “come and show support.”
There is also a bureaucratic issue. It’s not clear whether the debate, if it takes place at all, will be an official presidential debate. That distinction matters: The rules for an official debate are written in electoral legislation.
The official debate must be organized by the UA Pershyi public broadcaster and funded from state budgetary money allocated for the election. But that is unlikely to cover the cost of renting the country’s largest sports arena.
The last presidential candidates to have a TV debate were Victor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych in 2004, shortly before the eruption of the Orange Revolution over vote rigging.
No substance
Parallel to the debate over the debate, Poroshenko and Zelenskiy have been enthralled in a weird competition over who is the most fit to be president — physically.
It was Zelenskiy who first challenged Poroshenko to undergo simultaneous health checks to prove that neither candidate has a drug or alcohol addiction. For Zelenskiy, it was a way to fend off rumors that he is a drug user and simultaneously hint that Poroshenko himself has substance abuse issues.
But Poroshenko accepted the offer enthusiastically: While Zelenskiy underwent a simple blood test, the incumbent had his blood, urine, and hair tested for drug residue. He called on Zelenskiy to undergo a more extensive test, but was ignored.
Poroshenko didn’t stop there. He additionally took a doping test carried out by an international organization that tests athletes.
The president has also been campaigning restlessly, giving interviews and taking meetings with civil society and the business community. In contrast to his usual defiant stance, Poroshenko has now begun talking about the mistakes of his presidency and promising to do better if re-elected.
Meanwhile, Zelenskiy has been maintaining a low profile, avoiding the press and letting his advisors and campaign managers talk to journalists in his place. He communicates with his supporters mainly through short videos posted on social media.
However, Zelenskiy’s candidacy has received some reinforcement from Anatoliy Grytsenko, a former defense minister who ran for the presidency and got nearly 7 percent of the vote in the first round. While Grytsenko didn’t formally endorse Zelenskiy, he said he would vote for Zelenskiy — but only if the candidate revealed his choices for the country’s top government posts.
