Zelensky, Poroshenko advance to second round of Ukraine election

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The national exit poll showed on Sunday that Ukrainian actor Volodymyr Zelensky and incumbent President Petro Poroshenko gained the largest number of votes in the first round of the country's presidential election and make it to the run-off, the Ukrainian government-run Ukrinform news agency said.

The exit poll conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation suggested that Zelensky is taking a lead in the presidential race by garnering 30.4 percent of the votes as of 06:00 p.m. local time (1500 GMT), while Poroshenko is the runner-up with 17.8 percent of the votes.

According to the Ukrainian law, if none of the 39 candidates gets more than half of the votes in the first round, the two candidates with the most ballots are heading to a run-off on April 21.

Voting for the presidential election in Ukraine kicked off at 08:00 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) and ended at 08:00 p.m. (1700 GMT).

Supporters of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko take part in the presidential election campaign in Kiev, March 17, 2019. /VCG Photo

Comic's lead in Ukraine election

Zelensky, a 41-year-old comedian with no political experience held a comfortable lead over Poroshenko, offering a fresh face to voters in a country fed up with entrenched corruption.

Propelled by his anti-establishment appeal, newcomer Zelensky must convince voters he is fit to lead a country that has been at war ever since protests in 2014 ejected a pro-Kremlin government and Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula.

He has been criticized for being an unknown quantity and light on policy detail, and his victory speech on Sunday provided little further insight into what he would do if handed the top job in the second round vote.

Both Zelensky and Poroshenko face firmly west, but investors are also keen to see if the next president would push reforms required to keep the country in an International Monetary Fund bailout program that has supported Ukraine through war, sharp recession and a currency plunge.

Zelensky's laid-back style

Ukrainian actor and candidate Volodymyr Zelensky (C) submitting his candidacy for the elections in Kiev, January 25, 2019. /VCG Photo

"I would like to say 'thank you' to all the Ukrainians who did not vote just for fun," Zelensky told cheering supporters on Sunday. "It is only the beginning, we will not relax."

In keeping with the laid-back style of his campaign, Zelensky's election night venue provided a bar with free alcohol, table football and table tennis games.

Poroshenko called the result a "severe lesson," especially from younger voters, and urged their support in a second round.

"You see changes in the country, but want them to be quicker, deeper and of higher quality. I have understood the motives behind your protest," he said.

Poroshenko sought to portray Zelensky as unfit to represent Ukraine abroad, especially when taking on Russian President Vladimir Putin in international talks.

Putin "dreams of a soft, pliant, tender, giggling, inexperienced, weak, ideologically amorphous and politically undecided president of Ukraine. Are we really going to give him that opportunity?" Poroshenko said.

Challenges for the candidates

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (L) and comic actor Volodymyr Zelensky. /VCG Photo

Stuart Culverhouse, head of sovereign and fixed-income research at investment bank Exotix, said Zelenskiy had tried to present himself more professionally by meeting business leaders and talking of orthodox economic policies.

"That said, if the exit polls are confirmed in the official vote count, we would expect Zelensky to be put under greater pressure in the run-up to the second round to flesh out his policy agenda," he said.

Poroshenko has fought to integrate the country with the European Union and NATO, while strengthening the military that is fighting Kremlin-backed separatists in Ukraine's east.

Pushing the use of the Ukrainian language and instrumental in establishing a new independent Orthodox church, confectionary magnate Poroshenko, 53, has cast himself as the man to prevent Ukraine again becoming a Russian vassal state.

But reforms to keep foreign aid flowing have been patchy. Conflict in the eastern Donbass region has killed 13,000 people in five years and rumbles on despite Poroshenko's promise to end it within weeks. Frustration over low living standards and pervasive corruption has left the door open for Zelensky.

The majority of voters in separatist-held eastern Ukraine and Crimea were unlikely to take part in the election as they needed to undergo a special registration process on Ukraine-controlled territory.

Anti-establishment sentiment

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko greets his supporters, Kiev, March 17, 2019. /VCG Photo

But Crimean residents who kept Ukrainian citizenship after the Russian annexation crossed the land border to mainland Ukraine, from where buses took them to polling stations.

Just 9 percent of Ukrainians have confidence in their national government, the lowest of any electorate in the world, a Gallup poll published in March showed.

Zelensky has tapped into this anti-establishment mood, although his inexperience makes Western officials and foreign investors wary.

His campaign has relied heavily on social media and comedy gigs of jokes, sketches and song-and-dance routines that poke fun at his political rivals.

Zelensky's campaign blurred the line between reality and the TV series in which he plays a scrupulously honest history teacher who accidentally becomes president.

"He embodies the perceived need for 'new faces' in politics and could sway the young, pro-reform electorate to his side," said Economist Intelligence Unit analyst Agnese Ortolani.

(Cover image: A screen displays preliminary results of the first round of Ukraine's presidential election at the Central Electoral Commission headquarters, Kiev, April 1, 2019. /VCG Photo)

Source(s): Reuters ,Xinhua News Agency