Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
In Ukraine, frontrunner in presidential election is a comedian/screenwriter/actor/director.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/ukraines-elections-suffer-from-a-manafort-hangoverand-the-next-president-may-be-a-comedian?ref=homeAnd meanwhile the public is so fed up with all that, it might even choose a popular comedian as the country's next president.
To be sure, Manafort did not invent dirty politics here or for that matter when he served as Donald Trump's campaign chairman. But in a perverse way he branded them, and the ongoing skulduggery in Ukraine is widely referred to now as the “Manafort textbook.”
...
In fact, society is disillusioned with the old political models—and the old politicians. Both Poroshenko and Tymoshenko are in their fifties, and the candidate leading in the polls right now is a 41-year-old comedian named Volodymyr Zelensky.
Ukraine has an electoral process where no candidate is likely to win in the first round on March 31, so everything rides on who makes it into round two on April 21. The latest polls show Zelensky is a shoo-in for the runoff with more than 25.1 percent of the votes. Poroshenko and Tymoshenko are slugging it out for second place with 16.6 percent and 16.2 percent respectively.
...
The pressure on Zelensky increased this week.
“In the past few days we’ve seen video clips attacking our candidate, both on television and on YouTube, negative advertising saying that he is under the control of an oligarch,” Razumkov said.
...
Zelensky’s supporters do not think much about his ties with the oligarchs. Many in today’s Ukraine just want to forget about Manafort, Yanukovych, and their corrupt and manipulative methods all together.
To be sure, Manafort did not invent dirty politics here or for that matter when he served as Donald Trump's campaign chairman. But in a perverse way he branded them, and the ongoing skulduggery in Ukraine is widely referred to now as the “Manafort textbook.”
...
In fact, society is disillusioned with the old political models—and the old politicians. Both Poroshenko and Tymoshenko are in their fifties, and the candidate leading in the polls right now is a 41-year-old comedian named Volodymyr Zelensky.
Ukraine has an electoral process where no candidate is likely to win in the first round on March 31, so everything rides on who makes it into round two on April 21. The latest polls show Zelensky is a shoo-in for the runoff with more than 25.1 percent of the votes. Poroshenko and Tymoshenko are slugging it out for second place with 16.6 percent and 16.2 percent respectively.
...
The pressure on Zelensky increased this week.
“In the past few days we’ve seen video clips attacking our candidate, both on television and on YouTube, negative advertising saying that he is under the control of an oligarch,” Razumkov said.
...
Zelensky’s supporters do not think much about his ties with the oligarchs. Many in today’s Ukraine just want to forget about Manafort, Yanukovych, and their corrupt and manipulative methods all together.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volodymyr_Zelensky
