Kiev - Ukraine entered uncharted
political waters on Monday after near final results showed a
comedian with no political experience and few detailed policies
had dramatically up-ended the status quo and won the country's
presidential election by a landslide.
The emphatic victory of Volodymyr Zelenskiy, 41, is a bitter
blow for incumbent Petro Poroshenko who tried to rally
Ukrainians around the flag by casting himself as a bulwark
against Russian aggression and a champion of Ukrainian identity.
With over 90 percent of the vote counted, Zelenskiy had won
73 percent of the vote with Poroshenko winning just under 25
percent.
Zelenskiy, who plays a fictitious president in a popular TV
series, is now poised to take over the leadership of a country
on the frontline of the West's standoff with Russia following
Moscow's annexation of Crimea and support for a pro-Russian
insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
Declaring victory at his campaign headquarters to emotional
supporters on Sunday night, Zelenskiy promised he would not let
the Ukrainian people down.
"I'm not yet officially the president, but as a citizen of
Ukraine, I can say to all countries in the post-Soviet Union
look at us. Anything is possible!"
Zelenskiy, whose victory fits a pattern of
anti-establishment figures unseating incumbents in Europe and
further afield, has promised to end the war in the eastern
Donbass region and to root out corruption amid widespread dismay
over rising prices and sliding living standards.
But he has been coy about exactly how he plans to achieve
all that and investors want reassurances that he will accelerate
reforms needed to attract foreign investment and keep the
country in an International Monetary Fund programme.
"Since there is complete uncertainty about the economic
policy of the person who will become president, we simply don't
know what is going to happen and that worries the financial
community," said Serhiy Fursa, an investment banker at Dragon
Capital in Kiev.
"We need to see what the first decisions are, the first
appointments. We probably won't understand how big these risks
are earlier than June. Perhaps nothing will change."
WEST WATCHING CLOSELY
The United States, the European Union and Russia will be
closely watching Zelenskiy's foreign policy pronouncements to
see if and how he might try to end the war against pro-Russian
separatists that has killed some 13,000 people.
U.S. President Donald Trump phoned Zelenskiy and pledged to
support Ukraine’s territorial integrity, while European Council
President Donald Tusk congratulated the Ukrainian people on what
he called a show of democratic maturity.
Zelenskiy said on Sunday he planned to continue
European-backed talks with Russia on a so far largely
unimplemented peace deal and would try to free Ukrainians
imprisoned in Russia, which is holding 24 Ukrainian sailors
among others.
Viktor Medvedchuk, the Kremlin's closest ally in Ukraine,
last week outlined ways in which Ukraine and Russia could mend
ties, though Zelenskiy has given no indication of being open to
the prospect.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said
Ukraine now had a chance to "reset" and unite its people.
Zelenskiy has pledged to keep Ukraine on a pro-Western
course, but has sounded less emphatic than Poroshenko about
possible plans for the country of 42 million people to one day
join the European Union and NATO.
Poroshenko, who conceded defeat but said he planned to stay
in politics, said on social media he thought Zelenskiy's win
would spark celebrations in the Kremlin.
"They believe that with a new inexperienced Ukrainian
President, Ukraine could be quickly returned to Russia's orbit
of influence," he wrote.
Critics accuse Zelenskiy of having an unhealthily close
working relationship with a powerful oligarch called Ihor
Kolomoisky, whose TV channel broadcasts his comedy shows.
Zelenskiy has rejected those accusations.
One of the most important and early tests of that promise
will be the fate of PrivatBank, Ukraine's largest lender, which
was nationalised in 2016.
The government wrested PrivatBank from Kolomoisky as part of
a banking system clean-up backed by the IMF, which supports
Ukraine with a multi-billion dollar loan programme.
But its fate hangs in the balance after a Kiev court ruled
days before the election that the change of PrivatBank's
ownership was illegal, delighting Kolomoisky but rocking the
central bank which said it would appeal.
Zelenskiy has repeatedly denied he would seek to hand
PrivatBank back to Kolomoisky if elected or help the businessman
win compensation for the ownership change.
The IMF will be watching closely too to see if Zelenskiy
will allow gas prices to rise to market levels, an IMF demand
but a politically sensitive issue and one Zelenskiy has been
vague about.
Zelenskiy gave few new policy details on Sunday, but said he
wanted a new general prosecutor to replace incumbent Yuriy
Lutsenko, and spoke of wanting new generals to work in the army.
His unorthodox campaign traded on the character he plays in
the TV show, a scrupulously honest schoolteacher who becomes
president by accident after an expletive-ridden rant about
corruption goes viral.
Zelenskiy has promised to fight corruption, a message that
has resonated with Ukrainians fed up with the status quo in a
country that is one of Europe's poorest nearly three decades
after breaking away from the Soviet Union.