Ukraine's Presidential Elections: March 31

And boy, it’s likely be a wild ride, especially as the World is Watching, the West is already interfering in the election, and Ukrainian politics can get pretty er…kinetic, as in how many ‘Rumbles in the Rada’ have we seen post-Maidan?


As of today there are still 39 candidates vying for the job, and euronews.com claims that this piece contains ‘everything you need to understand about key poll’.  (Even though it’s manifestly biased against Russia and Yanukovitch who’d ‘fled’ as Maidan Uprsings, etc., but still kinda fun) including their category:

“Ukraine‘s challenges: conflict, corruption and a struggling economy

As of March 14:  “Who is leading the race to be Ukraine’s next president?

The current leader of the race is showman and comic Volodymyr Zelenskiy with almost 25% of public support so far. His rating directly reflects the frustrated aspirations of many Ukrainians and their mistrust towards politicians in power. He is linked to one of the most powerful Ukrainian oligarchs — Ihor Kolomoyskiy — who recently also endorsed him publicly.”

Now from Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s Wiki Page:

“Zelensky played the role of President of Ukraine in the hugely popular 2015 television series Servant of the People. The political party Servant of the People was created in March 2018 by people from the TV production company Kvartal 95 who also created the TV series of the same name”

“The latest polls show that President Poroshenko with almost 17% and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko with just above 18% of support tie in second place.

“Poroshenko is promising to renew the territorial integrity of Ukraine by diplomatic and political means and achieve the release of Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia.

Tymoshenko has made a dramatic return to mainstream politics [this is her third run for the Presidency for the Homeland Party, last time the Fatherland Party] promising Ukrainians a new constitution, cheaper energy tariffs, a reformed army and peace while vowing to make Russia pay for any damage it has done to the country.”


Tymoshenko, formerly ‘the braided one’, has a lengthy Wiki page, one photo of which is captioned:
“Tymoshenko and Chancellor Angela Merkel at a March 2011 European People’s Party summit in Brussels; the General Prosecutor of Ukraine’s Office lifted the travel ban imposed on Tymoshenko after U.S. Senator John McCain and European People’s Party President Wilfried Martens officially invited her to this event.

Other noteworthy entries are:

‘On 21 May 2016, Tymoshenko expressed hope that the EU will provide Ukraine a visa-free regime. Tymoshenko stressed that the Ukrainian state is there to protect the world all over Europe, continuing to fight the Russian aggression.’

(Received an) Award by American NGO Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) for contribution to democracy development. (March 2007)

Was known as ‘the Joan of Arc’ for having co-authored the Orange Revolution, and has a long section on her trials and imprisonment.  There’s even a section on Paul Manafort’s smear campaign against her in 2010 (beats me), but this is pretty funny:

‘In a recording (purportedly a leaked phone conversation with Nestor Shufrych, former deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine) Tymoshenko appeared to say in reference to the reunification of Crimea with Russia: “This is really beyond all boundaries. It’s about time we grab our guns and go kill those damn Russians together with their leader; and nuke 8 million Russians who are now exiles in Ukraine.” In a statement, while admitting she had spoken to Shufrych on the telephone, Tymoshenko denied having advocated the use of nuclear bombs against ethnic Russians in Ukraine, and avowed that the recording had been deliberately edited to discredit her.’

The killing all the Russians was okay; but not the nuking; got it.  Got a much more serious coiffure now, too, eh, Yulia.  But sure, she was one of the ones outraged that Yanukovitch had refused to sign the EU Association memo, then came the US astroturfed Maidan ‘uprising’.  She also of course wants Ukraine to become a NATO member. This is her website with her policy positions.

Now I’m going to borrow heavily from Eric Zuesse’s ‘Hope for Ukrainians, at Last’, and although I’d read it first at strategic culture, it had originated at washingtonsblog which encourages sharing (CC w/ attribution), March 25, 2019

‘Hope for Ukrainians, at Last’, Eric Zuesse, washingtonsblog.com (creative commons w/ attribution), March 25, 2019  [fascinating; off-Guardian’s picked it up; or maybe not so surprising…given all that follows.]

“Finally, it appears that there is realistic hope for an end to the brutal, far-right, regime that U.S. President Barack Obama, through his chief agent on Ukraine, Victoria Nuland, had imposed upon Ukraine, by means of an extraordinarily violent coup in February 2014, which replaced Ukraine’s democratically elected sitting President, by a rabidly anti-Russian imposed regime.

His bolded link goes to his ‘Head of Stratfor, ‘Private CIA,’ Says Overthrow of Yanukovych Was ‘The Most Blatant Coup in History’, December 20, 2014

“Although, until recent days, there were signs that none of the three leading Presidential candidates in Ukraine’s upcoming March 31st election would veer far off the coup-installed regime’s hard-right path, that has changed drastically in recent days.

On March 15th, French Ambassador to Ukraine, Isabel Dumont, communicating privately on behalf of all seven of the G7 Ambassadors, warned Ukraine’s far-right Minister of the Interior, Arsen Avakov, that “the G7 group is concerned by extreme political movements in Ukraine.”

This is the letter referenced:  ‘G7 Letter Takes Aim At Role Of Violent Extremists In Ukrainian Society Election’, March 22, 2019, rferl.org (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty), Christopher Miller (who also writes for the Kyiv Post)

In the letter that was addressed to Avakov on March 15, French Ambassador Isabelle Dumont wrote on behalf of her fellow ambassadors that “the G7 group is concerned by extreme political movements in Ukraine, whose violent actions are worrying in themselves.”

“They intimidate Ukrainian citizens, attempt to usurp the role of the National Police in safeguarding elections, and damage the Ukrainian government’s national and international reputation,” Dumont continued, in a thinly veiled reference to the National Corps and National Militia, the far-right Azov group’s political and vigilante wings, respectively.” [snip]

“The National Corps and National Militia were products of the Azov Battalion, a volunteer military regiment formed in the early days of the conflict against Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine that began in 2014. The battalion has been accused by international human rights groups of “war crimes” on the battlefield and has since been brought under the control of the National Guard, which is overseen by Avakov.
Members of the National Corps and National Militia have been blamed for multiple violent attacks on minorities in Ukraine, particularly Roma and LGBTI persons, in the past year.”

Back to Zuesse:

“This battalion is (though RFERL carefully ignores the fact) a white-supremacist Ukrainian organization. Its founder and leader, Andrei Biletsky (or “Beletsky”), calls his movement “Ukrainian Social Nationalism,” and he has laid out in writing its program as “racial purification of the Nation” and specifically as a return to “old Ukrainian Aryan values forgotten in modern society.” His followers had, under Obama (during and since the coup), powerfully helped to install the far-right new regime, which now possibly could finally end — Obama’s coup in Ukraine thus to become terminated in abject failure (which it actually already is) and ultimately abandonment by the Europeans (unless the U.S. Government gets out of there).

Zuesse also references this epic boost for the comedian Zelenskiy (some have dubbed ‘the joker’) from the Atlantic Council: ‘Why Zelenskiy Is the Only Decent Choice for Ukraine’, Feb. 21, 2019, Willem Aldershoff,

Keep in mind that the Atlantic Council er…advises NATO, which esteemed organization’s purpose is essentially to surround Evil Russia or promote hegemonic designs wherever…calls Ukraine variously: ’Nato aspiring member’, ‘under Nato’s umbrella’, or ‘a Partner of Nato’, meaning in Ukraine’s case: hurry up and clear up your corruption so you can afford to pay your Nato dues.

“Two candidates with long experience in Ukraine’s politics have a chance of making it through the first round: President Petro Poroshenko and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. However, they have poor reform credentials.  Poroshenko actively frustrated efforts to dismantle Ukraine’s oligarchic system by blocking real judicial reform, effective anticorruption measures, and electoral reform. Not one member of former President Yanukovych’s inner circle was convicted for plundering the country, hardly any of the stolen money was retrieved, and not one leading person responsible for the horrific Maidan killings was convicted. Tymoshenko will forever be associated with the questionable ways in which she amassed a huge fortune early in her career. The years when she was prime minister do not stand out for reforms. [snip]

“Polls show that comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy seems best placed to make it to the second round. It is easy to paint the man as a buffoon who has made millions by making fun of Ukraine’s political problems, as a naïve but well-meaning chap, or as an insincere schemer dancing to the tune of a leading oligarch.

A serious analysis of his record yields a different picture. His “Kvartal 95” shows have a long tradition of sharp and profound criticism of Ukraine’s utterly unfair political system, starting well before the Maidan. He has consistently criticized Russia’s aggression in Crimea and the Donbas and ridiculed Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“In the same vein, the European Union and the United States should start building contacts behind the scenes with the Zelenskiy campaign. A stable, prosperous, and democratic Ukraine is not only what Ukrainians have longed for, but it is also in the vital interest of the West.”

Kewl, eh?  The EU, Atlantic Council interfering in Ukraine’s elections again (as the US and USian billionaires had done last time before the ‘uprising against Yanukovitch? Did they stuff his campaign coffers with hryvnia?  Ah well, better he than…Yulia or the Chocolate King, I guess.


Zuesse again:

“…and this is despite the continuing insistence by 98%+ (virtual unanimity) of both houses of the U.S. Congress — almost the entire U.S. Congress (419 to 3 in the House, and at first 97 to 2 in the Senate and then 98 to 2 there) — to sanction Russia and to arm Ukraine however much will be necessary in order for Ukraine’s Government to conquer the two rejectionist parts of former Ukrainian territory. Behind the scenes, there is now immense pressure from the EU (such as that Atlantic Council writer, who is a former high official of the EU) against the U.S. regime’s insistence upon Ukraine’s conquest of those two former Ukrainian territories.”

[2017 House roll call vote for H R 3364, Senate roll call vote]

A little background from Oliver Stone’s ‘Ukraine on Fire’ via TRNN:

(from Aug. 2017)  the whole film is here; not to be confused with the Netflix agitprop ‘Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom’

“Then, on March 23rd, UA Wire headlined “Front-runner in Ukraine’s election race names condition for returning Crimea”, and reported that the leading candidate, Volodmyr Zelensky, suddenly made the radical statement: “Crimea will return only when power changes in Russia. There is no other choice.” He was, tactfully — so as not to be killed by the racist anti-Russians who had carried out the coup on behalf of Obama — asserting implicitly that he rejected the constant refrain by the other two leading candidates, Petro Poroshenko and Yulia Tymoshenko, that Ukraine must invade and conquer Crimea.”

The UA wire link.

“But now, with his clear (though entirely tactful) break away from Kolomoyskyi’s political record, Zelensky is, at the very least, pretending to be decent.

And the EU and even NATO are clearly coming out against the virtually unanimous policy of the U.S. Congress to push Ukraine toward outright war against Russia, and are backing, instead, Zelenskiy — the only leading candidate who is against invading Crimea and Donbass.”

A squib from ‘Election Watch: Polls don’t look good for Poroshenko; extra ballots cause concern; debates will be duds?’,  Olga Rudenko, March 22, kyivpost.com.

Editor’s Note: Election Watch is a regular update on the state of the presidential race in Ukraine. The country will elect its next president on March 31, 2019, with a possible runoff on April 21. The Election Watch project is supported by the National Endowment for Democracy. The donor doesn’t influence the content. NED, of course is a cover for the CIA…

Kiev’s Warmongering to Russia Plumbs Hysteria’, strategic-culture.org, March 8, 2019

“This week the head of Ukrainian armed forces Viktor Muzhenko claimed that Russia was prepping a massive invasion of his country with up to 80,000 troops. Such incendiary claims have been made before by Kiev, only to be proven false over and over.

How is that such a reckless regime is not hauled before an international court for incitement against peace owing to its crazed claims? Of course, because it is patronized by Washington and European allies who are not exactly averse to incitement against peace as can be seen with regard to Venezuela, Syria and countless other countries.

Another twist this week in the tortuous “Russians are coming” scaremongering fable were Ukrainian media claims that eight Russian submarines were spotted in the Azov Sea. Presumably that lurid vignette was intended to amplify public fears of a naval offensive in conjunction with the alleged mass troop invasion from “north, east and south”.

‘Ukraine’s Cult of Stepan Bandera: Not a Detail, but a Cornerstone’, Dmitry Babich, strategic-culture.org, Jan. 1, 2019, a teaser:


WHY THE WEST WANTS TO FORGET, BUT CANNOT

In the immediate aftermath of the Maidan coup in 2014, the mainstream press was ready to forget even that, since an honest account of Bandera’s activities between 1939 and 1959 could rekindle memories of the undesirable parallels to the “resistance to Russian occupation” by Poroshenko’s army in the Donbass in 2014 and 2015. Between the summer of 2014 and the winter of 2015, about 10,000 people died there, victims of the aircraft and tanks sent by Poroshenko (just months earlier, the US and the EU had been unable to abide the use of truncheons by the police of the ousted president, Viktor Yanukovych). At the time, the NYT called Bandera the “Ukrainian nationalists’ hero.” Obviously, the NYT’s authors were taking their cues from the Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum, with her Banderite headline, “Nationalism is exactly what Ukraine Needs” in the once-glorious New Republic.

But here the mainstream press tried to kill off a memory that will never die — the memory of how Hitler’s East European Nazi allies participated in the destruction of the region’s Jewish population in the early 1940s. This was something not even Anne Applebaum could make people forget.”

Aaaaand…right on cue: ‘Russian Navy tracks NATO squadron entering Black Sea (PHOTOS, VIDEO)  March 29, 2019, RT.com

“Russian ships are keeping a close eye on NATO, whose three frigates recently crossed into the Black Sea, preparing to sail near Crimea and conduct a joint naval drill with Ukraine and Georgia.

The large patrol ship ‘Vasily Bykov,’ along with surveillance ship ‘Ivan Khurs,’ both of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, are closely tracking the movement of NATO vessels in the area, the Defense Ministry said.

The photos and videos from Turkey had earlier showed three NATO frigates passing through the Bosporus Strait and entering the Black Sea on Thursday. The ships – Canadian HMCS ‘Toronto,’ Spain’s ‘Santa Maria,’ and Dutch HNLMS ‘Evertsen’ – are set to visit the Ukrainian port of Odessa, near Russia’s Crimea. They are later scheduled to participate in the ‘Sea Shield 19’ naval drill, together with ships from Ukraine and Georgia.”

(cross-posted from Café Babylon)

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"Rumbles in the Rada" to figure out where to begin on this flood of information.
Please make it easier to begin absorbing your excellent research, and do not assume we "get it".
Thank you.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

wendy davis's picture

@on the cusp

is the unicameral ukrainan parliament.

yes it's a flood, but it's important for among other reasons: russia...nato...Western Imperial global hegemony. if it's too much for you to read, i'll try to understand that. i'd reckoned folks here would have grasped the importance of its length.

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@wendy davis Please understand that not everyone, like me, who is interested in this, gets the words and phrases you use, and I also had to look up "dinnae".

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

wendy davis's picture

@on the cusp

used 'dinnae'. i d tend to mimic some quirky language and slang i've picked up from e-friends in other parts of the world. but if you read dunno and dinnae as written, you should be able to tell what they're short for, yes? one british expression you may be glad i consciously try to for go is: 'that (or he/she) really steps on my tits!'

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wendy davis's picture

@on the cusp

but if so i could supply w/ a much longer response to this:

"Please make it easier to begin absorbing your excellent research, and do not assume we "get it".
Thank you.

if you'd like one, i will try to supply it.

on edit: i'll at least give you the (hopefully) short answer.

first, how could i be expected to know what readers now or don't know? assuming ignorance isn't especially brilliant, is it? i read things here often that require me to look up terms, search for counter-factuals/counter-narratives, histories unknown to me (even if only wikipedia), sources of claimed statistics, etc.

additionally, i cross-post from my home website at which my media files are easy to access, and use a 2003 microsoft word to compose in which i can hyperlink any source i've just used/quoted, as long as i follow certain protocols booting them up again in a microsoft browser from one of the my two early firefoxes that still have Easy Copy html as JtC showed me.

internal hyperlinks used to cross-post to c99, but for some reason...they no longer do, so i bold an authors link i think is key, then put it in manually, add a snippet or two, so readers at c99 can follow the links they care to. when an author has unnecessarily long hyperlinks, at least on word i can remove the links, and shorten the bright yellows like zuesse uses to a visually manageable size, which of course takes even more time.

but by my reckoning, if readers are curious enough to want to know something new, they're usually willing to chase down a term or two. ; )

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wendy davis's picture

three days putting this together, and i'm weary, my eyes are barely seeing printed words by now.

tonight's lullaby by will be by way of an attempt to reflect 'in search of a multipolar world of cooperation, not competition and fear of the other'. sleep well, dream well, or at least...instructively.

[video:https://youtu.be/2hNVaVYDxUo]

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Big Al's picture

thanks for the effort. What a flashpoint. I'm not sure I share Zuesse's optimism, "Hope for Ukrainians, at Last", but we'll see. Surely the Masters of the Universe are working hard to insure it stays under their thumb and acting as an adversary to Russia. I remember that 419-3 vote, I think I wrote about it here. Guess who voted yay?

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wendy davis's picture

@Big Al

but i don't either, which i'd tried to signal with 'better he (Zelenskiy) than yulia or the chocolate king'. her wiki's of coure been altered appropriately, but she did, of course have ties to the neo-nazi groups in the past.

remember when the by-word of ukraine watchers was: 'yats can't get control of his nazis'? i dunno, a lot of us (i hope not just i, anyway) were ukraine/maidan/donbass self-declared republics watchers.

i did pick up a few detractors over it who swore on their mothers' graves that there were no neo-nazis about. "you're more intelligent than that, wendy" once erstwhile e-friend in prague told me. what.a.passive.aggressive.burn.

iirc, it was chris miller of the kyiv post who'd take his video camera into neighborhoods and say: "see? no neo-nazis here!" but then, finally, the papers of record couldn't help but admit it. hence, the nato/eu letters.

well, yes, i did take note of the house dems who'd voted aye on that bill.... ; ) on edit:
that's the reason i concede here and there: 'yes, she's anti-war for some, but not others'. nor does she seem to be anti-war for kashmiris and pakistanis, as that brouhaha heats up...again. being such a close friend of genocidaire narendra modi, i'd think among her and her hindu american foundation supporters (along w/ ro khanna) financial supporters could tell modi that he actually hold the long-promised plebiscite of self-determination for kashmiris, and rescind the odious on edit: The Unlawful Activities Prevention Act 1967 that's been used to disappear close to 1500 kashmiri and other dissidents in the last few years.

but back to ukraine: we kinda followed a russian-speaking dude named graham w phillips who'd been deported from his aces reporting and filmng , but i checked, and his Twit account's been suspended.

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Big Al's picture

@wendy davis she'd be like Obama, her track record certainly indicates that as well as her supposed "antiwar" talk. She's practically mirroring Obama from 2007/8 with updating relative to the current foreign policy situation. And after 17 plus years, she's as big a proponent of the war OF terror as any politician. Funny watching people who said they wouldn't get fooled again get fooled again.

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wendy davis's picture

@Big Al

gotten a bit confused by her policy statements v. her house.gov site and her campaign site. what i do think i remember is that on one of them she'd said is that she'd said she was in favor of going after post-9/11 terrorists or something. is that what you're pinging?
or this from code pink?

oh, and i was about to put a definition page to that draconian law i'd mentioned upthread....

and codepink had it that she'd also:

"Gabbard voted at least twice (in 2015 and 2016) not to repeal the much-abused 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force, and she voted three times not to limit the use of Pentagon slush funds. In 2016, she voted against an amendment to cut the military budget by just 1%. Gabbard received $8,192 in “defense” industry contributions for her 2018 reelection campaign.

Gabbard still believes in a militarized approach to counterterrorism, despites tudies showing that this feeds a self-perpetuating cycle of violence on both sides."

still their metrics were kinda creepy altogether, more for what they apparently didn't know, compared to what they'd brung. bernie w/ the highest peace rating....okaaaaaay.

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Bob In Portland's picture

@Big Al That's my main concern with her.

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wendy davis's picture

and found this title, which 'read more' sent readers to the asia times:

It’s fantastic, as it has no satire tag!

‘Ukraine at the crossroads; The upcoming presidential election has significant geopolitical implications, but Ukraine’s democracy looks sound and its westward lean looks assured’, Bohdan Nahaylo, asiatimes.com and who is bodhan nahallo?

(Bohdan Nahajlo (uses Nahaylo when publishing) is a British former senior UN official with over 20 years of experience and achievements in the political, humanitarian, development and refugee/migration-related spheres, author and former research analyst, writer and journalist, and specialist on Ukraine and its neighbourhood.)

“The result will be important for the country’s foreign creditors, its supporters and its neighbors, for Ukraine is not just the front line in the new confrontation between resurgent Russia and the West. While it sees itself as a bulwark for the rest of Europe, Ukraine also offers an alternative model for Russia itself – that of a democratic, post-Soviet country where elections are legitimate and where leaders can change.

Russia vs Ukraine

The country has come a long way since 2014, when months-long mass protests turned bloody, prompted the ouster of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych and confirmed the country’s western orientation. That affirmation of Ukraine’s European self-identification, and its rejection of a corrupt presidential administration prepared to accept Russian political, economic and cultural hegemony, triggered a strong and unexpected response from President Vladimir Putin.
In the same year, in the name of defending Russian speakers, Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and pro-Russian separatists attempted to seize large chunks of Ukraine.

The resulting war in eastern Ukraine between Ukraine and Russian-backed forces has, so far, killed some 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers and 10,000 civilians, while an estimated 2 million people have been forced to flee their homes. Despite international condemnation of Russia, and the imposition of sanctions, the conflict simmers on and Crimea remains occupied.”

see, 'Revanchist Russia' is the raison d'etre for re-purposed NATO 2.0

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wendy davis's picture

(i'd suddenly remembered this was to be today):

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Big Al's picture

@wendy davis I might have to put my yellow vest on (haven't used it yet) and head down to the city park.

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wendy davis's picture

@Big Al

good on ya; take some friends, bring media!

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wendy davis's picture

'Hundreds march in Washington, DC, to protest against NATO, US interference in Venezuela, RT.com, today

one tweet:

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wendy davis's picture

@wendy davis

g'night; and from he late great talking poet alchemist, santee sioux john trudell.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Igvhvsj7oKg]

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wendy davis's picture

via the kyiv post a bit of a potential upset:

First exit polls arrive: Zelenskiy leads with 30 percent (LIVE UPDATES), Kyiv Post.

“9:52 p.m. – The results of the exit poll conducted by the Socis polling agency, which is run by Poroshenko Bloc lawmaker Igor Hryniv, and the pro-Poroshenko Pryamy television channel: Zelenskiy – 29.25 percent; Poroshenko – 19.19 percent; Tymoshenko – 13.75 percent; Yuriy Boyko – 9.24 percent; Anatoliy Grytsenko – 7.91 percent.

9:47 p.m. – Final voter turnout: 63.92 percent of all registered voters cast their ballots as of 8 p.m., according to the Central Election Commission.

9:15 p.m. – Tymoshenko, who according to three exit polls doesn’t make it into the runoff, said the exit polls were rigged. Speaking to the press at her campaign headquarters in Kyiv, the three-time presidential candidate said that she doesn’t challenge Zelenskiy’s first-round victory, but claims that her campaign exit poll predicted she came second with 20.9 percent, while Zelenskiy won with 27 percent and Poroshenko got 17.5 percent.

Tymoshenko said she would fight for the right to go in the runoff with Zelenskiy.

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wendy davis's picture

11:14 p.m. – The final results of the National Exit Poll by several pollsters: Zelenskiy – 30.6 percent; Poroshenko – 17.8 percent; Tymoshenko – 14.2; Yuriy Boyko – 9.7 percent; Anatoliy Grytsenko – 7.1 percent; Ihor Smeshko – 6.5 percent; Oleh Lyashko – 4.7 percent; Oleksandr Vilkul – 4 percent; Ruslan Koshulynskiy – 1.7 percent. Other candidates polled under 1 percent.

11:10 p.m. – Central Election Commission begins publishing the results of the election. As of now, 0.4 percent of the ballots were processed and counted.

11 p.m – Zelenskiy made a brief appearance at his headquarters to answer journalists’ questions. He retorted to Poroshenko, who had called him “a puppet of oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky” in his post-vote speech: “I have only one question to our president: “Are you a puppet of Svynarchuk or is Svynarchuk your puppet?” By saying so, Zelenskiy referred to Poroshenko’s top ally and former deputy secretary of the State Defense and Security Council Oleh Hladkovsky, formerly known as Svynarchuk and whose son was involved in a large-scale embezzlement scheme from Ukrainian army. Zelenskiy also said he was ready to go on debates with Poroshenko.

10:40 p.m. – Tymoshenko’s team shows the results of a parallel vote count in 29 percent of polling stations.

Another lawmaker and Tymoshenko’s ally Serhiy Vlasenko called on the journalists present at the campaign headquarters not to believe the exit-polls, which all showed that Tymoshenko wasn’t getting into the second round.

Vlasenko said that a high voter turnout in the war-torn Donetsk Oblast, whose governor Oleksandr Kuts is also an officer of SBU state security service, which is subordinated to Poroshenko, was suspicious.

This is the area where most falsifications could have happened,” he said.

why in the world would the independent 'stolen by russia' donetsk oblast have an SBU governor? yeppers, i must be missing something....

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wendy davis's picture

i'd missed this earlier in the day. speaking from his campaign headquarters:

"Poroshenko said in his final speech at his election headquarters that the election results were a “serious lesson” for him.

“I soberly interpret the signal that society sends to the incumbent government,” he said. “This is absolutely serious grounds for carrying out meticulous work to correct the mistakes that have been made in recent years.”

Poroshenko argued that voters had “broken the Kremlin scenario” of the first round and accused Russia’s “fifth column” and exiled oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky of organizing a smear campaign against him.

i'm out for the night, but:

"April 1, 5:57 a.m. — Results holding with 33 percent of the votes counted: Zelenskiy – 30.17, Poroshenko – 16.69; Tymoshenko – 13.18. Pro-Russian lawmaker Yuriy Boyko looks set to finish a close fourth place with 11.43 percent."

ya gotta think the formerly-braided one is imagining if she doesn't make the run-off election in april that she and her supporters just might stage another orange revolution. ; )

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wendy davis's picture

again, lol, but from the kyiv post right now:

"With 88% counted, Zelenskiy gets over 30%, Poroshenko just over 16%", no numbers for tymoshenko, guess she's toast. why so slow to get the counts in, anyway?

also noteworthy: 96% of ukrainians voting from other locations around the globe...went for the chocolate king.

i can't imagine the percentages will change much when the other 12% come in, so i'll sign off, get about my day, and unless i spot some major upset later, end this diary.

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wendy davis's picture

“As expected, no pro-Russian candidate made it into the second round of the presidential election, but the Kremlin can still stir up trouble for Ukraine."

w/ a link to:

Disrupt and discredit: Russia still has Ukrainian elections in sights’, kyivpost.com, april fool’s day

from RT.com today: ‘Neither Poroshenko nor Zelensky will (or can) fix ties with Russia – journalist to RT, April 1, 2019

Now, it's been officially announced that Poroshenko and Zelensky will face each other in a runoff on April 21. And a big question remaining is whether Zelensky will indeed unseat the incumbent leader… and if so, will there be a change in ties between Kiev and Moscow. Fixing the strained relations could prove a more than challenging task in the near future, Bryan MacDonald, a Moscow-based Irish journalist, told RT.”

“The problem here is that "any deals would have to go through the Rada [the Ukrainian Parliament], which he would not control." Furthermore, in order to keep power, Zelensky would have to seek cooperation with various politicians, MacDonald says. That could see the current interior minister, Arsen Avakov, who is "strongly hostile to Russia," getting the post of the prime minister.

In addition, "there's no doubt he [Zelensky] is backed by the [Ukrainian] oligarch Igor Kolomoisky," who is "not exactly the fan of Russia."

yes, he'd endorsed him ; zelenskiy had said it dinnae matter, he's his own man, or close) but most of the big losers (according to their quotes at the kyiv post said they'll never vote for poroshenko.

guess we'll see after april 22 or so. maybe another orange revolution from miz yulia? ; )
nah. folks like Pierre & CIS/usaid/ned homies will make certain their most US friendly candidate wins.

p.s. sure wish i knew knew which lurker keeps givin' a thumb to my eleventy-seven comments.
anyhoo, thank you from the bottom of my pea-pickin' heart.

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