Ukraine’s 2019 Presidential Election.
Published March 23, 2019
This piece was written by a Group 49 Community Development volunteer who is remaining anonymous for security reasons. He will be working as a short term elections monitor in Ukraine with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) for the next two weeks.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual and not of RPCV Alliance for Ukraine.
On Sunday, March 31, 2019, the Ukrainian people will go to the polls to elect their next president to serve a five-year term. Of the 39 total candidates, six are seen as favorites and strong contenders. The incumbent Petro Poroshenko and chocolate company mogul was elected in 2014 after siding with pro-democracy Maidan Square demonstrators, and is considered by many a serious figure for re-election. The other major candidates are Yulia Timoshenko, Volodymyr Zelensky, Anatoly Hrysentko, Yuriy Boyko, and Oleh Lyashko.
Noteworthy is Yulia Timoshenko, who is the only woman among the six major contenders and a former Prime Minister (2007-2010). She is most famous for her opposition to Viktor Yanukovich, and her time as a political prisoner from 2011 until the February 2014 ousting of Viktor Yanukovych’s regime after his Berkut special police forces opened fire on student protesters in the now famous Euromaidan revolution in Kyiv. She was released soon after Yanukovych fled by helicopter to Rostov-on-the-Don in Russia after protestors threatened to storm the presidential palace by force of arms.
In a case where life imitates art, or even vice versa, another leading candidate is the actor/comedian Volodymyr Zelensky, the star of the hit Ukrainian TV series Servant of the People (слуга народу). The series became an instant hit in 2015 after Zelensky, playing Ukrainian history high school teacher Vasiliy Holoborodko, goes on a rant against the political corruption and the perceived staus quo in Ukrainian politics following the Yanukovych years. His rantings and ravings are captured by his students via their smart phones and go viral. He becomes an instant sensation as many Ukrainians can relate to the average high school teacher’s frustrations surrounding low pay, corruption, and limited or non-existent public services. Lo and behold, Holoborodko gathers enough signatures and is entered to run as a candidate for the presidential elections in Ukraine. Much to everyone’s surprise, especially his own, he is elected and is sworn in as President of Ukraine. In an interesting social commentary, Ukrainians are forced to confront their society’s anxieties and misperceptions through the figure of Holoborodko, as an “ordinary man of the people”.
As it appears highly unlikely that a single candidate will garner a majority of the vote on March 31, the likelihood of a run-off election on April 21 remains quite high. Officially, an estimated 34.5 million people are eligible to vote; however, 12% of the population is ineligible due to the ongoing occupation of Crimea, and portions of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions by Russian separatists since 2014. Finally, member states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), including but not limited to the United States, Canada, and EU member states, are sending nearly 750 short and long term elections observers to monitor the upcoming elections. These observers have a strict mandate to not interfere, but to merely report on any irregularities or issues that may arise.