2019 Ukrainian presidential election

Based on Wikipedia: 2019 Ukrainian presidential election

The Comedian Who Became President

In April 2019, a television comedian who had never held political office defeated a sitting president by the largest margin in Ukrainian electoral history. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, best known for playing a fictional president in a sitcom called "Servant of the People," captured nearly three-quarters of the vote against the incumbent Petro Poroshenko. It was the kind of upset that political analysts usually dismiss as impossible—until it happens.

What made this victory particularly remarkable wasn't just the margin. It was that Zelenskyy won while being transparently, almost defiantly, inexperienced. He had no political platform in the traditional sense. He had no party infrastructure. He had, essentially, a television show and a message that resonated with millions of Ukrainians who had grown exhausted with their political establishment.

A Crowded Field

The 2019 Ukrainian presidential election holds a peculiar record: it featured the largest number of candidates in the country's history. Forty-four people officially registered to run, though only thirty-nine made it to the final ballot. To put that in perspective, imagine trying to organize a debate stage with nearly forty podiums.

Getting on the ballot wasn't simple. Ukrainian law set clear requirements. You had to be a Ukrainian citizen, at least thirty-five years old, fluent in the Ukrainian language, and a resident of Ukraine for the previous ten years. But the real barrier was financial. Every candidate had to pay a deposit of 2.5 million hryvnias—roughly ninety thousand American dollars at the time. Only the two candidates who advanced to the runoff would get their money back. Everyone else's deposit went straight to the state treasury.

This deposit requirement served a practical purpose: it discouraged frivolous candidacies. Of the ninety-two people who initially submitted paperwork to run, the Central Election Commission rejected forty-seven of them, mostly for failing to pay the deposit.

The Dropouts and the Rejected

In the weeks before the election, a curious pattern emerged. Several candidates began withdrawing from the race—not because they lacked support, but because they were trying to consolidate the opposition vote.

Andriy Sadovyi, the mayor of Lviv, dropped out on March 1st and threw his support behind Anatoliy Hrytsenko. A journalist named Dmytro Gnap did the same the next day. Another candidate, Dmytro Dobrodomov, followed suit on March 7th. They were attempting something unusual in Ukrainian politics: building a coalition before the election rather than after it.

Not everyone who wanted to run was allowed to. Petro Symonenko, the leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine, saw his candidacy rejected because his party's symbols violated the decommunization laws passed in 2015. These laws prohibited Soviet imagery and symbols in Ukrainian political life—a legislative response to Ukraine's complicated relationship with its Soviet past.

Nadiya Savchenko, a military helicopter navigator who had been captured by Russian forces and later celebrated as a national hero, also failed to make the ballot. Her rejection was more mundane: she hadn't paid the deposit, and her party forgot to stamp the nomination documents.

The Money Behind the Campaigns

A Ukrainian non-governmental organization called Chesno analyzed the campaign finances, and the numbers revealed the stark inequalities of political competition. Poroshenko, the incumbent, had the largest war chest at 415 million hryvnias—about fifteen million American dollars. Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister making another run at the presidency, had 320 million. Zelenskyy, despite being the frontrunner in polls, had only 102.8 million hryvnias.

For context, compare these figures to the 2010 election. Viktor Yanukovych, who won that race, spent over forty million dollars. Tymoshenko, his opponent, spent thirty-six million. By those standards, even Poroshenko's 2019 spending looked modest.

But money alone doesn't explain what happened in 2019. Zelenskyy spent a fraction of what Poroshenko did and still won by a landslide.

The Television Wars

To understand Ukrainian politics, you need to understand Ukrainian television. The country's major networks are owned by oligarchs—extraordinarily wealthy businessmen who accumulated fortunes during the chaotic privatizations of the 1990s. And these oligarchs used their channels not just to entertain viewers but to shape political outcomes.

The landscape was complicated. Five separate television groups supported Poroshenko, including his own Channel 5. But the support wasn't always straightforward. Viktor Medvedchuk, a pro-Russian politician whose daughter's godfather is Vladimir Putin himself, owned channels that supported both Poroshenko and his political opponents simultaneously. Rinat Akhmetov, one of Ukraine's richest men, backed Poroshenko through his channel TRK Ukraina while also supporting other candidates.

Three television groups were openly critical of Poroshenko. The most significant was the 1+1 media group, owned by Ihor Kolomoyskyi—a billionaire oligarch who would become a source of controversy for Zelenskyy throughout the campaign and beyond. Zelenskyy's hit show "Servant of the People" aired on Kolomoyskyi's channel. His campaign critics would repeatedly ask whether the comedian was truly independent or merely a front for the oligarch's interests.

The state-owned broadcaster, which theoretically should have been neutral, was actually critical of the incumbent president. This was unusual. In many countries, state media tends to favor whoever controls the government. That it didn't in Ukraine suggested something about the depth of public dissatisfaction with Poroshenko's administration.

The Stadium Debate

The most dramatic moment of the campaign came on April 19th, two days before the runoff vote. Zelenskyy had proposed something unprecedented: a public debate at the Olimpiyskyi Stadium in Kyiv. This was the same venue that had hosted the 2018 Champions League final. It could hold over seventy thousand people.

Poroshenko agreed, perhaps calculating that his experience would expose Zelenskyy's inexperience in a live forum. Or perhaps he simply had no good options for declining.

The debate was moderated by Andriy Kulykov, a veteran radio broadcaster, and Olena Frolyak, who presented the nightly news on ICTV. Frolyak's involvement came with a peculiar bit of timing: April 19th happened to be her birthday. She had cancelled vacation plans the night before when she was selected to moderate.

What happened at the end of the debate captured something essential about Zelenskyy's appeal. After the broadcast ended, he walked up to the microphone and addressed the crowd directly. "The broadcast is over," he said. "Well? It's her birthday today! Congratulate her!" Then he led the entire stadium in singing a Ukrainian version of happy birthday to Frolyak.

It was a small gesture, but it demonstrated exactly what made Zelenskyy different from traditional politicians. He was warm where they were formal. He was spontaneous where they were scripted. He treated the campaign like a performance—which, for him, it was.

The same evening, the state broadcaster held an official debate commissioned by the Central Election Commission. Zelenskyy refused to attend, leaving Poroshenko alone in the studio. His critics said this showed contempt for democratic norms. His supporters said it showed he understood that the real debate was happening at the stadium, not in a television studio.

The Missing Voters

Although nearly 34.5 million Ukrainians were eligible to vote, roughly twelve percent of them couldn't participate. The reason was geography—or more precisely, occupation.

In March 2014, Russia had annexed Crimea following a disputed referendum that most of the international community refused to recognize. Since April of that same year, Russian-backed separatists had controlled portions of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainians living in these territories couldn't vote in their country's presidential election. The Central Election Commission also closed all five polling stations at Ukrainian embassies and consulates in Russia.

This meant that an election determining Ukraine's future excluded Ukrainians living under Russian occupation or Russian influence. The political implications were significant. Voters in Crimea and the occupied Donbas regions would likely have tilted toward more pro-Russian candidates. Their absence may have helped candidates positioning themselves against Russian interference.

The First Round

About 18.9 million people voted on March 31st, a turnout of sixty-three percent. The results were not particularly close. Zelenskyy led with thirty-one percent of the vote. Poroshenko came second with just sixteen percent. Yulia Tymoshenko, who had been expected to be a major contender, finished third and was eliminated.

Under Ukrainian law, if no candidate wins an absolute majority in the first round, the top two finishers advance to a runoff. This system is designed to ensure that the eventual winner has broad support, not just a plurality in a fragmented field. But in practice, it meant that Zelenskyy and Poroshenko would face each other directly, one-on-one, with no other candidates to split the vote.

The Landslide

The second round, held on April 21st, wasn't even competitive. Exit polls predicted Zelenskyy would win with over seventy percent of the vote. When the official count came in, he had received 73.22 percent. Poroshenko got just 24.45 percent.

The margin was historic. Poroshenko became the third Ukrainian president to lose a reelection bid—following Viktor Yushchenko in 2010 and Leonid Kravchuk in 1994. In the entire history of independent Ukraine, only Leonid Kuchma had ever won reelection, back in 1999.

Poroshenko conceded quickly. Soon after the polls closed and exit data was released, he acknowledged defeat. "We succeeded to ensure free, fair, democratic and competitive elections," he wrote on Twitter. "I will accept the will of Ukrainian people."

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which had sent international observers to monitor the vote, confirmed that the elections were indeed free and fair. More than 2,300 international observers from seventeen countries had been officially registered, along with a record 139 Ukrainian non-governmental organizations.

International Reactions

The congratulations from world leaders came quickly, though some carried notes of caution.

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt offered a clever reference to Zelenskyy's television show: "He will now truly be the Servant of the People," Hunt said. The President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, offered congratulations, as did Donald Tusk, who at the time served as President of the European Council, and Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Russia's response was more measured. Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said that "the new leadership now must understand and realise the hopes of its electors" in both domestic and foreign policy. This was diplomatic language, but the implication was clear: Russia would be watching to see whether Zelenskyy's policies differed from Poroshenko's stance against Russian aggression.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau congratulated Zelenskyy and thanked the Canadian observers who had helped oversee the elections. The United States President, Donald Trump, called the president-elect to congratulate him and "the Ukrainian people for a peaceful and democratic election."

A joint letter from Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, expressed hope that Zelenskyy's victory would accelerate implementation of the European Union-Ukraine Association Agreement. This agreement, which included provisions for a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area, represented Ukraine's institutional ties to Europe—ties that had been contested since before the 2014 revolution that ousted Poroshenko's predecessor.

The Concerns

Not everyone was celebrating. Even Poroshenko, in his concession, issued a warning. "A new inexperienced Ukrainian president could be quickly returned to Russia's orbit of influence," he tweeted.

Other critics focused on Zelenskyy's relationship with Ihor Kolomoyskyi, the oligarch who owned the television channel where Zelenskyy had made his name. Would the new president be able to stand up against Ukraine's powerful oligarchs? Would he be able to resist Vladimir Putin, who had already demonstrated his willingness to use military force against Ukraine?

These questions would define Zelenskyy's presidency. Within three years, they would be answered in ways that no one in April 2019 could have predicted.

Inauguration

Volodymyr Zelenskyy was sworn in as the sixth President of Ukraine in May 2019. He was forty-one years old. He had gone from playing a fictional president to becoming a real one in the span of a few years. His party, named after his television show, would go on to win parliamentary elections later that year, giving him a legislative majority to pursue his agenda.

The comedian had become commander-in-chief of a nation at war. The question was whether he could handle the role when the cameras stopped rolling and the real decisions began.