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posted by martyb on Monday April 22 2019, @10:12AM   Printer-friendly
from the Just-kidding? dept.

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


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @11:14AM (26 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @11:14AM (#833334)

    Hope he will be able to make things better for you. I have my doubts though and it's not that i think that Zelensky would be bad at it, although i do not know a lot about him and his abilities and affiliations. Keep on keeping and fight the ruskies! They will do everything to destapilize your country.

    This was a message from a friendly country of white and blue.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @12:44PM (7 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @12:44PM (#833356)

      He had a lot of practice being the ukranian president in a sitcom.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @02:15PM (6 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @02:15PM (#833381)

        Is Alec Baldwin running for President?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @03:18PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @03:18PM (#833410)

          I'm not sure everyone would be happy with that. He appears a lot on Russia Today and I've learned that that is bad.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @03:55PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @03:55PM (#833425)

          god dammit Arec Bardwin

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @04:30PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @04:30PM (#833435)

            Are you ronery?

        • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday April 22 2019, @05:02PM (2 children)

          by Freeman (732) on Monday April 22 2019, @05:02PM (#833454) Journal

          No, but we did get that guy from that show, where he fired people. The show was forgettable, kind of hard to forget about him now, though.

          --
          Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
          • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday April 22 2019, @05:27PM (1 child)

            by Freeman (732) on Monday April 22 2019, @05:27PM (#833461) Journal

            Ah, we had prior precedent, though, as Reagan was an Actor.

            --
            Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
            • (Score: 1) by redneckmother on Monday April 22 2019, @07:34PM

              by redneckmother (3597) on Monday April 22 2019, @07:34PM (#833499)

              Actor? I thought he was Nancy's ventriloquism dummy...

              --
              Mas cerveza por favor.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @01:29PM (16 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @01:29PM (#833368)

      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)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @02:33PM (#833390)

        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)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @02:35PM (#833391)

          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

            by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Monday April 22 2019, @05:14PM (#833459) Homepage
            To be a dual citizen would mean that he couldn't couldn't hold any office, which he has done for several years.
            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

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @09:33AM (#833778)

            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)

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday April 22 2019, @03:32PM (#833415) Journal

          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)

            by legont (4179) on Monday April 22 2019, @06:21PM (#833477)

            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: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @10:34PM (2 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @10:34PM (#833565)

            wswswswsws agrees. (Wasn't sure if they're in your rotation.) Landslide victory for Zelensky over Poroshenko in Ukrainian presidential election [wsws.org]:

            Poroshenko’s entire presidential campaign was based on whipping up militarism and anti-Russian xenophobia....

            In the weeks prior to the election, Poroshenko attempted to portray Zelensky as an agent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, claiming that a vote for Zelenskiy would lead to Ukraine’s return to the “Russian empire.”

            Zelensky... is a representative of the Ukrainian oligarchy and will act on its behalf and on behalf of Western imperialism. In all essentials, his agenda will continue the hated policies of Poroshenko.

            He is a close associate of Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky, the owner of Ukraine’s 1+1 Media Group, who has been living in exile in Israel in recent years and is now planning to return to Ukraine.

            Zelensky’s most important meeting during the campaign took place not in Ukraine, but rather in France, where he met with French President Macron. In a sign that Western imperialism was orienting itself towards working with a Zelensky presidency, Macron met with Zelensky in mid-April, prior to a separate meeting with Poroshenko.

            Throughout the campaign, Zelensky was careful to not reveal anything concrete about his economic agenda, but in his interview with RBK Ukraine, he admitted to being a supporter of all types of “deregulation”—in other words, the elimination of what remains of Ukraine’s social services.

            He has won the support of several prominent free market “reformers” within Ukraine, including... former Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius. Abromavicius is notorious for his attempts to push through the wide scale privatization and sale of Ukraine’s remaining state-owned industries.

            Both Zelensky and Abromavicius... have stated that Ukraine will remain in the IMF loan program for as long as necessary. Zelensky has also proposed to end a moratorium on the selling of farmland, per IMF order, and has equivocated on the IMF-ordered hiking of natural gas prices, which plunged many Ukrainians into the cold the past winter.

            Regarding education, one of Zelensky’s advisors, Serhiy Babak, suggested that a massive privatization of public education was in the cards....

            • (Score: 3, Informative) by driverless on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:49PM (1 child)

              by driverless (4770) on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:49PM (#833843)

              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

                by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @04:44PM (#833906)

                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)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @05:04PM (#833455)

          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)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @06:02PM (#833471)

            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

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @07:26PM (#833496)

              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)

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @08:00PM (#833503)

              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

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @08:57PM (#833516)

                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

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @04:15AM (#833711)

        A joke government has to be better than a fascist neonazi government a joke of a government.

        FTFY

    • (Score: 2) by jb on Tuesday April 23 2019, @06:06AM

      by jb (338) on Tuesday April 23 2019, @06:06AM (#833733)

      They will do everything to destapilize your country

      Frankly, I think the Ukraine has bigger problems than running out of staples...

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @11:15AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @11:15AM (#833335)

    Ukrania has a comedian in charge. USA has a clown in charge.

    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @03:01PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @03:01PM (#833403)

      honk honk

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @04:35PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @04:35PM (#833436)

        A clown car with nonstop clowns.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @09:39AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @09:39AM (#833779)

      America's last great comedian was George Carlin and they can't exhume him to run as president because of the power outages when the country finds out the flywheel they attached to his corpse is the only thing keeping the power grid running :)

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @11:19AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @11:19AM (#833337)

    or allow Ukraine to become another France

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @01:49PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @01:49PM (#833375)

      Too busy legalizing cannabis and prostitution.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @12:15PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @12:15PM (#833347)

    Wrestler for governor, moviestar for governor , anchorman,... long list really

  • (Score: 2) by Megahard on Monday April 22 2019, @03:18PM (1 child)

    by Megahard (4782) on Monday April 22 2019, @03:18PM (#833411)

    His first act was to rickroll his supporters.

    • (Score: 4, Funny) by richtopia on Monday April 22 2019, @03:33PM

      by richtopia (3160) on Monday April 22 2019, @03:33PM (#833416) Homepage Journal

      Admittedly, I would want a President who will:

      Never gonna give you up
      Never gonna let you down
      Never gonna run around and desert you
      Never gonna make you cry
      Never gonna say goodbye
      Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

      Okay: "say goodbye" might be appreciated; otherwise we are moving into dictator territory.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by richtopia on Monday April 22 2019, @03:29PM (3 children)

    by richtopia (3160) on Monday April 22 2019, @03:29PM (#833414) Homepage Journal

    I'm typically anti-establishment, so a comedian president seems like a mix-up of an institutionalized system. Given the large margin of victory, I suspect the Ukranian people have similar emotions.

    Now, almost any other country I would be very cheerful for this outcome. But the Ukraine has an on-going armed conflict and territory occupied by another nation, not to mention a difficult economic position. If you were loading a scenario in "Presidential Ruler Simulator 2019" this would be somewhere around the harder difficulty setting.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @04:38PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @04:38PM (#833438)

      Comedians are typically not dumb, so there is hope.

      • (Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:53PM (1 child)

        by driverless (4770) on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:53PM (#833847)

        They're also not experienced politicians, which is what's needed to handle the Ukraine's made-in-Moscow war. In peacetime a popular, close-to-the-people leader is a fine thing, but in a crisis and having to make tough decisions it may not be the best choice.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @10:08AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @10:08AM (#834277)

          it depends on his intentions.
          my impression is that capable actors/comedians should make capable judges of character (since they are bullshitters themselves), therefore they CAN surround themselves with honest and capable counsel --- but this ability of theirs does not mean they are willing or capable of leading the country out of trouble (he could be a coward who's afraid to select advisors properly, or he could be an opportunist who just wants to steal everything that he can).

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @06:30PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @06:30PM (#833480)

    Jokers seem to be "in" thing these days.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @07:46PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @07:46PM (#833500)

      Why so serious?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @10:28AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @10:28AM (#833790)

    No wonder Putin doesn't like the results. The expected cuddling of Nazis by the previous presidents against the Russian East played well into Putin's hands. But this guy wants to heal the divide. The West (non-Russian friendly) voted for him. The East (Russian-friendly) voted for him. Putin can't say "poor oppressed Russian minority" anymore.

    Now it's up to Zelensky to just end this pointless war.

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