Kiev: Ukrainians went to polls on Sunday in the second round of an extraordinary election with a comedian who plays a president on TV expected to win in a stunning rebuke to the political establishment.
41-one-year-old Volodymyr Zelensky’s bid to lead the country of 45 million people was initially dismissed as a joke when he announced his candidacy on the NY’s Eve. But now all opinion polls suggest incumbent President Petro Poroshenko is heading for defeat amid widespread anger over poverty, corruption and war.
Zelensky’s victory is expected to open a new chapter in the history of a country that has gone through two popular uprisings in two decades and is mired in a five-year conflict with separatists in the east. Polling stations opened at 0500 GMT as voters from Ukrainian-speaking regions in the west to Russian-speaking regions in the war-torn east went to cast their votes.
Outside a polling booth in Kiev, Galyna, 81, said she voted for Zelensky. “Because I am against Poroshenko,” said the pensioner who refused to give her last name. Zelensky has tapped into widespread frustration over graft, poverty and a conflict with separatists that has claimed 13,000 lives.
But others doubted if the consummate showman would be able to take on the country’s vested interests, negotiate with the likes of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and stand up to Russia’s Putin. Viktoriya Olomutska in Kiev advised many voted for teacher-turned-president Vasyl Goloborodko, Zelensky’s character in the popular TV show ‘Servant of the People’, now in its third season and available on Netflix. —Agencies
