Vladimir Zelensky
Comedian Vladimir Zelensky, who has ties with opposition oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi and is openly backed by his TV channel 1+1, is leading in the presidential election in Ukraine.
According to the fresh data, Zelensky has 30.46% of the vote after 71.27% of the ballots has been counted. Incumbent oligarch President Petro Poroshenko is second with 16.16%. The third is another oligarch, Yulia Timoshenko. She has 13.15%.
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The popularity of Zelenski is mostly based on a popular political satirical TV series, ‘Servant of the People’ as well as performances of ‘Studio Kvartal 95’, which also produces satirical content about the Ukrainian political life.
At the same time, Zelenski’s perfomance in the presidential election is obviously based on the protest vote of the population. People vote against the current government supporting Zelenski as a real life meme. Nonetheless, this does not mean that if he becomes the President of Ukraine, something will change cardinally. The comedian is deeply affilated with Kolomoyskyi, who was openly funding radical nationalist [often neo-nazi] battalions fighting militias of the region of Donbass in 2014-2015.
Right now, it looks that there will be a second round of the election in which Poroshenko will face up his comedian opponent.
