Voters in Ukraine cast ballots in a presidential election on Sunday after a campaign that saw a comedian with no political experience become the front-runner and two other top candidates, including the current president, face allegations of voter bribery.
Opinion polls have indicated that Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who stars in a TV sitcom about a teacher who becomes president after a video of him denouncing corruption goes viral, is leading a field of 39 candidates. The polls also had Zelenskiy outpacing incumbent President Petro Poroshenko and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the other top candidates, by a broad margin.
“Zelenskiy has shown us on the screen what a real president should be like,” said voter Tatiana Zinchenko, 30, who cast her ballot for the comedian. “He showed what the state leader should aspire for — fight corruption by deeds, not words, help the poor, control the oligarchs.”
If no candidate secures an absolute majority in Sunday’s vote, a runoff between the two top finishers will be held April 21. Campaign issues in the country of 42 million included Ukraine’s endemic corruption, its struggling economy and a seemingly intractable conflict with Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine that has killed 13,000 people since 2014.
Concern about the election’s legitimacy have spiked in recent days after Ukraine’s interior minister said his department was “showered” with hundreds of claims that supporters of Poroshenko and Tymoshenko had offered money in exchange for votes.
By Sunday afternoon, the Interior Ministry said it had received about 950 complaints of voting violations, including unauthorized campaigning at polling places, attempts at vote-buying and the removal of ballots.
Like the popular character he plays, Zelenskiy, 41, made corruption a focus of his candidacy. He proposed a lifetime ban on holding public office for anyone convicted of graft. He also called for direct negotiations with Russia on ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
“A new life, a normal life is starting,” Zelenskiy said after casting his ballot in Kiev. “A life without corruption, without bribes.”
His lack of political experience helped his popularity with voters amid broad disillusionment with the country’s political elite.
“(We have) no trust in old politicians. They were at the helm and the situation in the country has only gotten worse — corruption runs amok and the war is continuing,” said businessman Valery Ostrozhsky, 66, another Zelenskiy voter.
Poroshenko, 53, a confectionary tycoon when he was elected five years ago, pushed successfully for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to be recognized as self-standing rather than a branch of the Russian church.
However, he saw approval of his governing sink amid Ukraine’s economic woes and a sharp plunge in living standards. Poroshenko campaigned on promises to defeat the rebels in the east and to wrest back control of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 in a move that has drawn sanctions against Russia from the U.S. and the European Union.
Speaking at a polling station Sunday, the president echoed his campaign promises of taking Ukraine into the EU and NATO. He said holding a fair, free election was “a necessary condition for our movement forward, to Ukraine’s return to the European family of nations,” and was confident about the ballot despite the bribery allegations.
“I’m sure that the election was well organized,” Poroshenko said. “The expression of the will of the citizens will be protected.”
The president’s priorities persuaded schoolteacher Andriy Hristenko, 46, to vote for him
“Poroshenko has done a lot. He created our own church, bravely fought with Moscow and is trying to open the way to the EU and NATO,” Hristenko said. Ukraine’s former prime minister, Tymoshenko, shaped her message around the economic distress of millions in the country.
“Ukraine has sunk into poverty and corruption during the last five years, but every Ukrainian can put an end to it now,” she said after voting Sunday.
During the campaign, Tymoshenko denounced price hikes introduced by Poroshenko as “economic genocide” and promised to reduce prices for household gas by 50 percent within a month of taking office.
“I don’t need a bright future in 50 years,” said Olha Suhiy, a 58-year-old cook. “I want hot water and heating to cost less tomorrow.”
A military embezzlement scheme that allegedly involved top Poroshenko associates as well as a factory controlled by the president dogged Poroshenko ahead of the election. Ultra-right activists shadowed him throughout the campaign, demanding the jailing of the president’s associates accused in the scheme.
Zelenskiy and Tymoshenko both used the alleged embezzlement to take hits at Poroshenko, who shot back at his rivals. He described them as puppets of a self-exiled billionaire businessman Igor Kolomoyskyi, charges that Zelenskiy and Tymoshenko denied. However, many political observers have described the presidential election as a battle between Poroshenko and Kolomoyskyi.
Both the president and Kolomoyskyi relied on an arsenal of media outlets under their control to exchange blows. Just days before the election, the TV channel Kolomoyskyi owns aired a new season of the “Servant of the People” TV series in which Zelenskiy stars as Ukraine’s leader.