With 30% of the vote, Ukrainian comedian Volodymyr Zelensky is well ahead of outgoing President Poroshenko in the first round of the presidential election. Who is this novice in politics accused of populism who knew how to bring together an electorate disappointed by the political class of the country?
1- Deep Ukraine
The 40-year-old – he was born in 1978 – comes from the industrial city of Kryvyi Rih, in the Russian-speaking and mining center of Ukraine. A rough, popular region, and today particularly polluted because of the steel factories and the abandoned mines.
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2- Showman
Before becoming a well-known comedian and a successful producer, Zelensky began his acting career by participating in regional comedy sketch competitions. In the 1990s, he participated in the humorous television game show “KVN”, then founded a production company in the 2000s before participating, once famous, in the Ukrainian version of “Dancing with the stars”.
3- Already president
It was his persona of Vasyl Horoborodko, a history teacher who became president of Ukraine, that brought Zelensky to fame. A hero he largely embodied during the campaign in a disturbing confusion of roles: the actor went so far as to give his party the name of the hit series in which Horoborodko became president: “Servant of the people”.
4- Po-si-tif!
In a campaign marked by the war raging in the east of the country, the Russian threat and economic difficulties, Zelensky is the only candidate to have led a positive campaign proclaiming the love of his country. With smooth and consensual slogans, the actor knew how to attract to him an electorate tired of hearing only anxiety-provoking speeches.
5- Programmatic void
Between the vague, the fanciful and the inaudible, the candidate’s program frankly worries political analysts. The actor promises to “fight for peace”, to put an end to corruption or to make his fellow citizens “prosperous”… but how? Radio silence.
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6- Ping-pong
Zelensky cultivates the cool-attitude. What better way to appear relaxed than to exchange a few ping-pong balls in a moment of stress? Ten minutes before the announcement of the results of the first round of the presidential election, the candidate therefore offered himself a small game against a journalist in his campaign headquarters in the middle of the press and his supporters.
7- Oligarch
How closely is Zelensky related to Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky? Supported by his television channel “1+1”, surrounded by certain followers of the businessman, the big loser of the Poroshenko era, Zelensky seems to benefit from his largesse. A shadow on the table of the actor in a Ukraine which denounces since the revolution of 2014 the collusion between the great economic powers and the political environment.
8- Campaign-show
The actor led a rockstar campaign, playing the card of proximity to his audience during performances given across the country or that of the big show during television shows broadcast on the channel “1 + 1” of the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky . Benefits broadcast one like the other on social networks, another favorite communication tool of the actor.
9- Ronald Reagan
Was it a last minute attempt at a subliminal message? Saturday evening, on the eve of the first round of the presidential election, “1 + 1” broadcast a documentary on the accession to power of another actor, American this one: Ronald Reagan. In voiceover, that of Volodymyr Zelensky! The rapprochement between the two actors could not however go very far: if the Ukrainian is a novice in politics, Reagan had indeed led several campaigns before attacking the supreme magistracy both within the union of actors than at the head of the State of California.
10- Pro-European
In a country that has long been analyzed in the light of the “pro-Russian versus pro-European” divide that crossed it, this presidential election marks a turning point: the three candidates who came out on top, Volodymyr Zelensky the first, preach a pro-Western discourse . If the actor declared himself a candidate, at the end of December, in Russian, he nevertheless clearly indicated that he wanted to maintain the pro-Western course of his country.