Ukraine election: Comedian Zelensky wins presidency by landslide
Ukrainian comedian Volodymyr Zelensky has won a landslide victory in the country's presidential election, exit polls suggest.
The polls give the political newcomer, who dominated the first round of voting three weeks ago, more than 70% support.
Mr Zelensky, 41, challenged incumbent president Petro Poroshenko who has admitted defeat. The apparent result is being seen as a huge blow to Mr Poroshenko and a rejection of Ukraine's establishment.
"I will never let you down," Mr Zelensky told celebrating supporters on Sunday. "I'm not yet officially the president," he added. "But as a citizen of Ukraine I can say to all countries in the post-Soviet Union: Look at us. Anything is possible!"
See also: Ukrainian Presidential Debate Sparks Envy Among Russians And Belarusians – OpEd
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @01:29PM (16 children)
It's unlikely he can make things any worse for Ukrainians, than the past couple administrations have. A joke government has to be better than a fascist neonazi government.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @02:33PM (14 children)
But the past government was set up by the US. Will the new president continue the old policies, or will they return to their natural allies Russia?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @02:35PM (2 children)
New President was put in by the guy who runs the network his TV show airs on. He's a dual citizen of Ukraine and Israel. Take a guess.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by FatPhil on Monday April 22 2019, @05:14PM
His way around this conundrum is to hold triple citizenship - just add Cyprus to your list.
Maybe the Cyprus link is what helps him run an EU committee (unelected, as far as I know - he basically appointed himself)?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @09:33AM
I started wondering that myself. When was the last time we heard about a country, any country, having self-determination that wasn't controlled by moneyed interests within or without the country. It has been a lot time for anywhere large enough to qualify as either third or first world, and I gather most island or flyover nations either.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday April 22 2019, @03:32PM (5 children)
Articles I read have suggested it's unlikely that Zelensky will pivot to Russia. But only time will tell and his positions aren't very defined.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by legont on Monday April 22 2019, @06:21PM (1 child)
Checking BBC maps, the predominantly Russian areas voted for him the most. The only district where Poroshenko won is the extreme western part around Lviv populated mostly by Eastern European Nations.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday April 22 2019, @07:33PM
It seems that he got 73% of the vote. Against an incumbent. And what "Russians in Ukraine" want might not match up with what the Kremlin wants.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @10:34PM (2 children)
wswswswsws agrees. (Wasn't sure if they're in your rotation.) Landslide victory for Zelensky over Poroshenko in Ukrainian presidential election [wsws.org]:
(Score: 3, Informative) by driverless on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:49PM (1 child)
Uh, just in case anyone missed what's hiding behind the abbreviation "wsws" that that quote is from, it's the World Socialist Web Site, the mouthpiece of the International Committee of the Fourth International. It carries a... novel interpretation of world events.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @04:44PM
Will add with abbr (e.g. wswswswsws, paper of record of the ICFI). fwiw, their interpretation is certainly novel, one should be aware that when ever they write "working class protests blablabla" or "working class outraged by blablabla" what they mean is that their autoworker's steering committee somewhere in Detroit (where wswswsws is headquartered) representing about 50 people passed a motion. otoh, their cynicism usually ends up being vindicated it seems.
But it's more likely that capitalism collapses to feudalism (probably a few times over about 5k years, maybe 10k) before it advances to socialism. If humans require more evolution to get away from the sociopath megalomaniac leader with sheeple pattern it could be more on the scale of about 100k to 1m years, which seems like a safe minimum for evolutionary changes. What will probably happen is that humans just regress back to great apes. Another possibility is suggested by Erikson in his Malazan series that maybe a species capable of complex social pattern such as civilizations will eventually just give up the civilization idea entirely over 100k to 1m years and turn into solitary nomads. Maybe for humans, seems they're more happy living in small farming villages of somewhere around 300 people max, so maybe they'll simply give up on ideas like empires and city-states on the scale of 100k years. (Of course, it's tempting to envision these dispersed farming villages as being steampunk/clockpunk.)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @05:04PM (4 children)
Natural allie? Are you a complete rusky troll or just stupid? Russia fucking took their land and caused a war. No one else has taken their land or fought against them. Russia is anything but an allie.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @06:02PM (3 children)
Your are acting like a tool for the man. Ask the Ukranians and let them decide. You have no say, so bugger out.
A good place to start is to look at what caused the internal division in Ukraine. It all happened (this time) in the middle of a betting war between EU and the Russian Federation for Ukranian membership. The turmoil left room for fascist factions to get control of parts of Ukraine and they still occupy those areas. The new comedian overlord has promised to keep trying to get back the land from the fascist occupation. Russia took advantage of the situation and when the Crimean population voted to join the Russian Federation, Russia accepted. That might not have been fair game, but far from the shitty propaganda you are a posterboy for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @07:26PM
Troll? I could have called the facists 'nationalists', but truth is it's a bunch of skinheads with swastika tattoos. What I wrote was an accurate and chronological description of events spiced up with funny comedian guy stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @08:00PM (1 child)
Russia orcestrated the so called vote and did not just accept the results.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @08:57PM
Thank you so much for the links to the definite proof of that statement. I'm now sure it's not just something you feel is what must have happened because Russia is clearly always the force of evil in everything they do. I now realise that all of the voters was forced to vote as they did.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @04:15AM
FTFY