April 26, 2019

Zelensky faces first challenges ahead of presidential inauguration

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Volodymyr Zelensky presidential campaign

President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky takes a selfie after learning the preliminary results of the presidential election poll at the Parkovy Congress and Exhibition Center in Kyiv on April 21.

KYIV – President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky is already facing his first challenge just three days after he trounced incumbent Petro Poroshenko in an April 21 election for the nation’s highest post. 

Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin signed a decree on April 24 that simplifies the procedure for giving Russian passports to some 3.8 million residents of the occupied parts of the Donbas. Moscow has since 2017 recognized passports issued by its puppet authorities in the territories that it controls in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. 

The measure signals Moscow’s further stranglehold on the region and reduces the maneuvering room that Mr. Zelensky will be able to use to negotiate a lasting ceasefire despite his strong mandate of three-quarters of the vote. The political newcomer’s platform, like his predecessor’s in 2014, included achieving peace in the Russian-stoked war that has killed more than 13,000 people and internally displaced more than 1 million civilians. 

President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky counts down to the live announcement of the preliminary exit poll announcement that he received about three-quarters of the presidential vote in the run-off with outgoing President Petro Poroshenko on April 21 in Kyiv’s Parkovy Exhibition and Congress Center. 
(Credit: Mark Raczkiewycz)

 

In an e-mailed statement, Mr. Zelensky’s team said that, through the decree, Russia had “acknowledged its responsibility as an occupier state,” and that it doesn’t “bring us closer to achieving the ultimate goal: a ceasefire.” 

President Poroshenko, in a video address, said that “the Russian Federation has crossed another red line, openly and disrespectfully torpedoing the peace process in the Donbas.”

Moscow brushed off the criticism, and Mr. Putin stated that the move is “purely a humanitarian matter.”

Just days before the run-off election with the incumbent, Mr. Zelensky revealed his team of experts – none of whom were presented as responsible for issues of re-integrating or freeing the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula or non-government controlled Donbas. 

On election night he reiterated his intention to maintain the Normandy format of peace talks that includes Germany, France and Russia. He also said that Kyiv would stick to the existing Minsk peace process that France and Germany brokered and which contains a series of steps for ending the interstate war. 

Mr. Putin has yet to congratulate Ukraine’s president-elect on his victory. The Russian president’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has stated that, although Moscow “is ready for open dialogue” with a new Ukrainian president, it won’t discuss the Donbas war because it is not a party to it despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The Kremlin has falsely portrayed the conflict as a civil war. 

The move to issue passports is “deliberate” and was used as an “excuse for Russia’s war against Georgia in 2008,” the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group said in a statement. Leading up to the war, Russia had provided passports to residents of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two breakaway regions that the West still considers to be part of Georgia.

After illegally annexing the Ukrainian territory of Crimea in March 2014, Russia enforced citizenship on its residents – a move that violates the Geneva Convention because Moscow is an occupying force. 

Election night

Mr. Zelensky’s strongest support was in the east, where nearly 90 percent of voters in Luhansk oblast and 87 percent in Donetsk oblast cast ballots for him. 

In a victory speech at his election night headquarters, he thanked “all Ukrainians who supported me [and] thank you to all Ukrainians who made a different choice… I promise that I will never let you down.”

A comedian with no political experience, Mr. Zelensky, 41, closed by taking a jab at Russia which has had Mr. Putin as either president or prime minister for almost two decades. 

“And finally, while I’m not officially president I can say as a citizen of Ukraine to all former Soviet countries: ‘Look at us – anything is possible’.”

Reporters got a glimpse of both the fictional and non-fictional election winner that night. Ten minutes before the preliminary exit poll results were announced at 8 p.m. Mr. Zelensky walked into the main hall accompanied by the theme song to “Servant of the People” – the television series in which he plays a schoolteacher who accidentally becomes president. 

After disappearing following his victory speech, Mr. Zelensky returned minutes later to address reporters. He mentioned that President Poroshenko had called to congratulate him and had offered “help” any time. Mr. Zelensky voiced his desire to reduce the Presidential Administration staff and his preference of not working at its present location because “the space should be open.”

He continued: “I want to find a [new] place in Kyiv or near Kyiv and don’t want a motorcade.”

He promised to name his official appointees and nominees at a separate news conference. The president appoints the defense and foreign affairs ministers as well as the state security chief, and, with Parliament’s approval, the prosecutor general and central bank chairperson. 

Mr. Zelensky did indicate that the current prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, would be dismissed.  “Lutsenko is part of the old team,” he said. “We will appoint new people. And this concerns not only Mr. Lutsenko.”

He also hinted that personnel changes would take place also at the General Staff of the armed forces. “I have agreements with authoritative officers, generals but I can’t name them… I have an agreement with them not to name them at this time,” Mr. Zelensky said.

When asked whether billionaire Ihor Kolomoisky, whose television network has aired his comedy shows for seven years, had congratulated him, Mr. Zelensky replied, “no, only Poroshenko.” 

The presidential inauguration must take place by June 3, according to law.

At Poroshenko headquarters

At the Mystetskyi Arsenal art and culture complex where his election night headquarters were based, Mr. Poroshenko justified his actions and emphasized the achievements of his five-year term. 

Presidential Administration of Ukraine

President Petro Poroshenko and First Lady Maryna Poroshenko appear before a crowd of supporters who came to thank him for his service at the Presidential Administration building on April 22 in Kyiv.

He touted progress made towards integrating with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union. His policies of delegating more powers to regional and local governments, the establishment of new anti-corruption bodies, upgrading the military and securing an independent Orthodox Church were also mentioned. 

However, “the outcome of elections leaves us with uncertainty, unpredictability and a big question mark on whether the strategic course of Ukraine towards the EU and NATO will be secured and the democratic reforms will be continued,” Mr. Poroshenko said. 

While stating that he will stay in politics and run for Parliament, Mr. Poroshenko ended on a positive note: “We did not win the battle today. But it does not mean that we lost the war. We have plenty of battles ahead. I want to emphasize – Ukraine will definitely win.”

On the following day, April 22, several thousand supporters assembled in the courtyard of the Presidential Administration building to thank President Poroshenko for his service. He appeared with First Lady Maryna Poroshenko on the balcony to greet them, and then came down to personally speak with supporters. 

Part of Mr. Poroshenko’s legacy will be an expansive law that elevates the status of the Ukrainian language. A solid majority of 278 lawmakers adopted the bill in its second and final reading on April 25. The new law promotes the language in almost all walks of life and solidifies Ukrainian as an official language in all government activities. Eighty-five percent of Ukrainians consider Ukrainian their native language, a Razumkov Center poll found in March 2017. Yet, as of 2018, only 33 percent of newspapers and 27 percent of magazines were published in Ukrainian. 

Mr. Zelensky criticized the language law in a Facebook post. “The state should promote the development of the Ukrainian language by creating incentives and positive examples rather than with prohibitions and punishments, [and] complicating bureaucratic procedures…,” he said. 

He vowed to conduct a thorough analysis of the law once in power. 

Voters’ high hopes

Mr. Zelensky won by a record three-to-one margin with 73 percent of voters, or more than 13.5 million casting ballots for him. It was a huge protest vote based on voters’ desire for new faces who are not part of the political establishment. 

His strong mandate is based on the hope that he will be able to crack down on corruption and end the war in the Donbas, and do it with a team of experienced technocrats who have corporate and military experience. 

Prophetically, during his debate with Mr. Poroshenko on April 19, Mr. Zelensky told him: “I’m not your opponent, I’m your verdict.”

Given the challenges being mounted even before he has taken office, Mr. Zelensky will need to act quickly and take the initiative by announcing his team and specifically outline policy priorities and initiatives. 

Currently, the president-elect “is surrounded by politically inexperienced groups of influence that represent his show business colleagues, members of his comedy troupe, corporate lawyers and allies of oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky,” wrote Adrian Karatnycky, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and managing partner of Myrmidon Group LLC.

Both the American Chamber of Commerce and the European Business Association (EBA) in Ukraine, issued similar “commandments for responsible stewardship of Ukraine’s economy,” Ukraine Business News (UBN) daily reported. 

These include maintaining EU integration, cleaning up the court system, tackling corruption, and promoting investment and property rights, among other items. 

In particular, the EBA called for choosing “professionals with an impeccable reputation and lack of ties with oligarchs and big business,” UBN reported. 

Politically, Mr. Zelensky needs to create a coalition in Parliament – elections are scheduled for October 27, but a snap election might be called depending on the inauguration date. The latest that the Verkhovna Rada can be dissolved is six months before election day. 

“Zelensky needs a strong Parliament, not another chorus of admirers,” wrote James Sherr, senior research fellow of the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute. 

The second task “will be to thwart any plans that Ihor Kolomoisky has to turn Zelensky from ‘servant of the people’ into his own,” Mr. Sherr wrote. 

Mr. Zelensky also inherits a war that is entering its sixth year and will have to contend with Russia’s hybrid measures that include information, economic and cyber warfare on top of conventional war. 

Luckily, the president-elect is being handed an economy that has modestly grown yearly by 2 to 3 percent since 2016. Personal income grew 10.9 and 9.9 percent in 2017 and 2018, respectively. Inflation has eased over the past three years to 9.8 percent in 2018. Labor migrants contributed $14 billion to the economy last year in remittances – significantly higher than other foreign direct investment sums. Ukraine exported $20 billion worth of goods and services to the EU last year, whereas $3.7 billion went to Russia. 

Ukraine went from 144th place on the Transparency International corruption index in 2013 to 120th last year. Economists note that Ukraine saved $6 billion by eliminating opportunities for corruption. The army’s budget this year stands at $3.7 billion and has 255,000 servicemen on duty. 

Additionally, Ukrainians have also enjoyed visa-free travel to most EU countries since June 2017. 

“What Zelensky needs is more support than he would like rather than more demands than he can manage. Given those things, he might even rise to the occasion,” Mr. Sherr wrote. 

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