WASHINGTON, D.C. — Experts on Ukraine, who are also mostly good friends of the country, were making efforts to put a positive spin on the outcome of the first round of the March 31 presidential election won by TV comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
They praised the orderly conduct of the voting, judged to be largely free of cheating, and tried to show optimism about the prospect of a Zelenskiy presidency. But many were clearly troubled about Zelenskiy’s lack of political experience and by an absence of detailed policy intentions.
Zelenskiy, with 30 percent of the vote, trounced President Petro Poroshenko, who garnered around 16 percent. The two will face off in the deciding second-round vote on April 21.
There were no polls among the Ukrainian diaspora about who they favored or thought would win. But the Kyiv Post, at various events, asked many Ukrainian-Americans who keenly follow politics in the country of their origin about the candidates. The completely unscientific results revealed a dramatic disparity between how the diaspora assessed the mood in Ukraine and how reality panned out on the ground.
Most thought that Zelenskiy as president would be a disaster for Ukraine and did not believe – or perhaps did not want to believe – he would gain enough support to win the top job although many predicted he would get into the second round.
Much of the discussion in the diaspora was about the merits of Poroshenko versus former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Most recognized Poroshenko’s flaws, notably about not being tough enough on corruption, but trusted him more than Tymoshenko, often described as a “loose canon” and thought he was the least bad option out of the three leading candidates.
A hefty majority thought either Poroshenko or would win after entering the second round against Zelenskiy, believing that many Zelenskiy supporters were gripped by a sort of angry protest madness but would come to their senses in the ballot booths and transfer their allegiance to Poroshenko.
However, those assumptions look badly out of kilter with the results from Sunday’s election and both the experts and members of the diaspora have been taken aback by the size of Zelenskiy’s victory and that it will now seemingly require a minor miracle for Poroshenko to bridge the massive gap.
Everyone acknowledges that miracle may occur as many things may change over the next three weeks with political scandals likely to emerge making the complex math of how voters will realign in the second round impossible to predict with any precision.
Freest fairest elections
The Atlantic Council, one of the most prestigious think tanks in the American capital and which has taken a leading role in analyzing and publicizing developments in Ukraine, gathered together experts at its downtown D.C. headquarters on April 1 to assess the results of the previous day’s election.
Everyone agreed that the elections were the freest and fairest Ukraine had held and demonstrated that the democratic process had solidified in the country.
The consensus view attributed Zelenskiy’s success to widespread disenchantment in Ukraine with the figures that have populated Ukraine’s oligarch-heavy political landscape since the country’s 1991 independence and have failed to deliver on their campaign promises to fight corruption and improve the economy.
John Herbst, director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, which focuses on Ukraine, and a former U.S. ambassador to Kyiv, said it was a credit to Ukrainian society that while the country was fighting “the world’s second greatest military power” its citizens were still able to focus on domestic concerns like democratic elections.
He said the first round results showed “there is disenchantment in Ukraine with the state of domestic affairs. While the country has united strongly to oppose Kremlin aggression, people hoped that the Revolution of Dignity (that overthrew Viktor Yanukovych in 2014) would lead to major changes domestically and an improved standard of living.”
He said although there had been important achievements by the Ukrainian government in some reforms and slashing the scope for corruption mechanisms, particularly in the gas sector and government procurement, people were disappointed. to an extent by “unrealistic expectations” by the slow speed of change.
Voters craved someone fresh, said Herbst: “The fact that he is a well-known comedian meant that he had name recognition, which is very helpful to a politician. But he also had nothing to do with the current state of political and economic affairs, which was a real advantage in round one of the presidential election.”
Melinda Haring, editor of the Eurasia Center’s UkraineAlert bulletin, said Zelenskiy picked up on the mood of voters better than his rivals and traded cannily on his fictional image in the popular TV comedy “Servant of the People” where he plays a decent schoolteacher who unwittingly becomes president and then sets about righting the ills that trouble Ukrainians in real life – the war, corruption, and the parlous economy.
Haring said Poroshenko is “perceived as a strong wartime president who saved Ukraine on the brink of collapse, but one who failed to cleanse Ukraine” or to reform the corrupt judicial system, which she said meant foreign investors – essential for economic growth – were wary of risking their money in the country.
Troublesome lack of experience
Many observers throughout the election campaign have commented on Zelenskiy’s lack of political experience. Speakers at the Atlantic Council though took comfort from the fact that, like Poroshenko, Zelenskiy also advocates good relations with the U.S and membership in NATO and the EU.
But they were troubled by Zelenskiy’s apparent sparse knowledge about national security, foreign relations and larger economic issues.
Herbst said: “Zelenskiy recognizes that Moscow is responsible for the war in Donbas. Like Poroshenko, he demands the return of Crimea. But Zelenskiy lacks national security experience and (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is likely to test him if he wins. It is very important that Zelenskiy name a strong national security team if elected.”
Haring mentioned that among Zelensky’s weaknesses was that he had said he would negotiate with Putin, which she said “is perceived as a totally naïve position.” She also noted that his claims to be a reformer were somewhat discredited by his association with notorious oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, whose PrivatBank cost taxpayers $5.6 billion in a spectacular case of alleged bank fraud.
Kolomoisky, who owns the TV channel that has brought fame and wealth to Zelensky, is said to be backing the comedian candidate because of his hatred for Poroshenko who he blames for his business demise and the legal woes on fraud charges that have turned him into a fugitive stuck in Israel.
Anders Aslund, an expert on the former USSR’s economies and politics and a former economic adviser to the Ukrainian government, said that Zelenskiy was not a political or business “nobody” and that anyone studying the TV series he created and stars in realizes that Zelenskiy knows exactly what makes Ukraine tick.
Aslund said that Zelenskiy had built up a 1,000-strong company, proving his business proficiency and “he has managed to stay out of all dirty schemes as far as we know.” He added that Zelenskiy had as economic advisers two of Ukraine’s most able former ministers in post-Maidan governments, Aivaras Abromavicius and Oleksandr Danylyuk.
Serious common sense
Herbst said that when he met Zelenskiy he was impressed by his “serious common sense.” Danylyiuk and Abromavicius were present at the meeting, Herbst thought, to reassure him of Zelenskiy’s ability to grapple with economic issues. But Herbst wondered to what extent the former ministers would be able to influence him as president.
He noted that Zelenskiy does not seem to have security advisers with the same experience and authority as Danylyuk and Abromavicius and that was necessary if he wants to be Ukraine’s next president. He expects any referendum to join NATO “will fall by the wayside” under a Zelenskiy presidency.
Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy, created by America’s Republican and Democratic parties to foster democracy around the world, and which has been very active in Ukraine, said the backdrop to the election was that “Ukraine is still involved in an existential struggle” fighting a war against Russia.
He said he dealt with countries all over the world where election-rigging went unchecked and contrasted that to the voting that happened in Ukraine, which he called “clean” and where all the candidates had been allowed to express their views.
He accepted there had been “no real EuroMaidan people” among those candidates with a real chance to get into the decisive round of elections, but said that nevertheless it was an enormous step forward for Ukraine and “I don’t think that Putin can very happy.”
Gershman said those who voted for Zelenskiy knew he was in favor of the European Union and NATO and, as his supporters came from all over the country, that could mean he had nudged more Ukrainians toward a West-leaning attitude.
He believes “the Russians lost big” but warned that “sometimes when a guy like Putin gets in trouble he may want to play the nationalist card and attack Ukraine.”
Nataliya Bugayova, from the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, also spoke about how the elections were perceived by Moscow. She said said the fact that Ukraine had held free elections showed that “Russia had not achieved its core objective in Ukraine which is re-orienting Ukraine back politically to Russia’s orbit and not just her orbit but also to her model of governance.”
She said Moscow did not want a Poroshenko victory and had worked to increase the incumbent’s negative ratings, believing that Zelenskiy and Tymoshenko were “more shapeable” – easier to influence – for the Kremlin.
But she said Moscow was not relying on these elections to turn around relations between the two countries. Bugayova said they were also looking toward the parliamentary elections in the fall in the hope they will yield a more Kremlin-friendly composition that would enable them to negotiate on pressing issues such as energy and water supplies for Russian-occupied Crimea.
Lots of ‘juicy corruption scandals’ to come
Commenting about how the second round of elections may play out, Herbst said that nobody should make predictions just on the basis of the results of the first round. He predicted there would be a lot of horse-trading by candidates eliminated in the first round decided who to advise their supporters to vote for on April 21.
For instance he believes Tymoshenko will start negotiations with both remaining candidates to see who will offer her the best deal if they become president, said Herbst.
“So I suspect that the second round will be a tighter race than the first but I’m not sure (who will win) because this is a true wild-card election,” he said.
Aslund thinks Zelenskiy may win the second round of voting with two-thirds of all ballots cast in his favor. He said that revelations about corruption had figured prominently the run-up to last Sunday’s voting and predicted “we will see lots of juicy corruption scandals in the next three weeks.”
Gershman agreed that the elections looked as if they were heading toward a Zelenskiy win. But he said: “We’re in a tough time for democracy in the world all over – resurgent authoritarianism, backsliding among some democracies, crises of populism and nationalism in the established democracies – and Ukraine is a positive story that’s very important at this time.” He believes that Ukraine’s determination to remain on a democratic, westward course is an important message for the entire Euro-Atlantic political community.
Haring said that Poroshenko poses a formidable challenge for Zelenskiy because the president is a very able politician and strong debater. Other speakers agreed and said Poroshenko was likely to play on Zelenskiy’s lack of experience and try to portray him as someone easily manipulable by Putin.
The speakers said that the elections had dramatically undermined two of the Kremlin’s favorite tropes about Ukrainians: that they are right-wing extremists and virulent anti-Semites.
The most successful right-wing candidate, Oleh Lyashko, mustered just over 5 percent of the vote, while ultra-extremists hardly had any impact at all.
As to anti-Semitism, it was pointed out that Ukraine is already the only country, apart from Israel, that has a Jewish prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman. Groysman, as Aslund pointed out, is “proudly Jewish” and Zelenskiy, who is also Jewish, did not face anti-Semitism problems on the way to his spectacular first-round victory.
Aslund asked: “Could any other European country elect a Jewish prime minister and a Jewish president? Which means that Ukraine today stands out as far more tolerant than almost anybody else.”
