KIEV, April 22 -- The presidential elections in Ukraine on Sunday resulted in a landslide victory for Volodomyr Zelensky, a 41-year-old lawyer and comedian who in very short time established a new party and defeated the incumbent president since 2014, Petro Poroshenko, by 73 % against 25 % of the votes. Total voter turn-out was 62 %, well above the 42 % turnout in the presidential elections in North Macedonia the day before. The EU developed close relations to Poroshenko but seems to have got tired of his stalling of necessary anti-corruption reforms and was quick in congratulating Zelensky to his victory. In an unusually warm letter (22 April), presidents Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker expressed their “appreciation of Ukraine’s strong attachment to democracy and the rule of law throughout the electoral process”. While significant progress has been made in Ukraine since Ukraine’s “Revolution of Dignity” in 2014, much remains to be accomplished, according to their letter. Despite his inexperience of politics, and avoiding questions from journalists during the election campaign, Zelensky was seen as untainted by corruption and supported by the majority of Ukrainians who wanted change and voted in protest against Poroshenko. Zelensky became popular when playing the president in a TV series by name “Servant of the people”, the same name as his party. His victory is the more amazing as he von the elections despite preferring speaking Russian over Ukrainian and being of Jewish origin in a country with an anti-semitic past. In their letter, Tusk and Juncker assured Zelensky that he, as president of Ukraine, can count on EU’s support and invited him to a meeting at the earliest possible date. Zelensky will be facing huge challenges such as solving the ongoing conflict with separatists supported by Russia in its eastern Donbass region, where 13 000 people have been killed, and ramping corruption despite EU-inspired anti-corruption measures (32 points on Transparency International´s corruption index). Still he is optimistic about leading Ukraine towards EU and NATO membership in the coming years.
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