Ukrainian comedian, Volodymyr Zelensky has scored a landslide victory in the country's presidential election. With nearly all ballots counted in the r
Ukrainian comedian, Volodymyr Zelensky has scored a landslide victory in the country’s presidential election. With nearly all ballots counted in the run-off vote, Zelensky had taken more than 73% with incumbent Petro Poroshenko trailing far behind on 24%.
The 41 year old who is also a film maker, is a political novice, best known for starring in a satirical television series Servant of the People, in which his character accidentally becomes Ukrainian president.
Celebrating his victory, Zelensky told supporters, “I will never let you down. I think that we will have personnel changes. In any case we will continue in the direction of the Minsk [peace] talks and head towards concluding a ceasefire,” he said about rebooting peace talks with the separatists fighting Ukrainian forces and volunteers in the east.
However, the incumbent Poroshenko, who admitted defeat told voters that Zelensky was too inexperienced to stand up to Russia effectively. There have been sporadic skirmishes and the situation also remains tense around Crimea, annexed from Ukraine by Russia in 2014.
Russia on its own part wants Zelensky to show sound judgement and pragmatism so that relations between both countries can improve. A political analyst with BBC, Kiev, Jonah Fisher believes the pressure will now be on Mr Zelensky to demonstrate that he knows what he is doing.
Apparently, throughout the election campaign, he avoided serious interviews and discussions about policy – preferring instead to post light-hearted videos to social media.
