Perspectives on the Future of Ukrainian Politics

2019/05/01

As of the writing of this article, the presidential election campaign is underway in Ukraine. While it was expected to be a two-way race between incumbent President Poroshenko and former Prime Minister Tymoshenko, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a TV personality famous as a comedian, suddenly emerged as a leading candidate. A person with no political experience and unknown political insight (to confess, I did not know much about who he was until this presidential election) has suddenly become a leading candidate for president and seems likely to even win the election.

Seeing such a phenomenon makes one wonder what is happening in Ukrainian politics. Would such a phenomenon occur in other countries? In Russia, there is opposition political activist Navalny, but he is a lawyer and has made political contributions such as exposing corruption in the political world, making him different from Zelenskyy. Even Trump in the United States had some political activity, such as running from a minor party in the 2000 presidential election before the 2016 presidential election.

If so, is it possible that a lack of political experience is actually supporting Zelenskyy's popularity? In other words, against the backdrop of Ukrainian citizens' distrust of politics, are the people supporting Zelenskyy precisely because he has no political experience at all? There are aspects that make this plausible. The first thing exposed during the Maidan revolution was the accumulation of wealth by then-President Yanukovych, and since then, corruption has not improved, leaving the Ukrainian people with deep-seated distrust of politics. The explanation that they are supporting an inexperienced candidate because they cannot trust existing politicians at all seems persuasive at first glance.

However, I feel there is a missing element in this argument. The owner of the television station where Zelenskyy gained popularity is Kolomoisky, one of Ukraine's billionaires who was dismissed as governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast after clashing with Poroshenko. In fact, Kolomoisky's shadow seems to be looming behind Zelenskyy. Although Zelenskyy himself denied it, if Kolomoisky is Zelenskyy's patron and is pushing him as someone easy to control, then the structure in which a few wealthy individuals dominate behind the scenes of politics (and therefore corruption never disappears) remains unchanged. This will likely be one key point to observe in future Ukrainian politics.