Ukraine finalizes first-round presidential election results

The Central Election Commission of Ukraine announced
this morning the final results of the first round of the presidential
elections. Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a comedian and actor with no government
experience, finished in first with a 30.24% result, or 5.7 mln votes. Ukrainian
President Petro Poroshenko was in second place at 15.95%, or 3.0 mln votes.
Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was in third place at 13.4%, or 2.5 mln
votes. Former Deputy Prime Minister Yuriy Boyko earned fourth place at 11.7%,
or 2.2 mln votes. Former Defense Minister Anatoliy Grytsenko was in fifth place
at 6.9%, or 1.3 mln votes.

Zelenskiy won 20 out of Ukraine’s 25 oblasts, or regions. The Russian-oriented Boyko won
the votes in the easternmost regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, while the pro-NATO
Poroshenko won the traditionally pro-Western regions of Lviv and Ternopil.
Tymoshenko won the pro- Western Ivano-Frankivsk region. Voter turnout was
63.52%, compared to 60.19% in the 2014 presidential vote.

Zenon Zawada: Among the
most overlooked themes of these elections is the strong Russian-oriented vote.
Had the Russian-oriented electorate rallied around a single candidate (rather
than being split between the factions of Yuriy Boyko and Oleksandr Vilkul, a
former vice prime minister), that candidate would have earned 3.0 mln votes and
finished in third place, just 24,318 votes short of Poroshenko’s result. We have long expected a strong
Russian-oriented vote in the October parliamentary elections, but it will be
even stronger if these two factions (torn by a rivalry between oligarchs Rinat
Akhmetov and Dmytro Firtash) find a way to unite into a single party (as the
Party of Regions had been).

Our main conclusion from the first-round vote is that
Ukrainians are chiefly concerned about raising their living standards and
ending the war in Donbas.

As for second-round projections, we can say with
confidence that nearly half of Tymoshenko’s 2.5 mln votes will go to
Zelenskiy, as well as most of Boyko’s 2.2 mln votes.  On
top of that, the pro-NATO Poroshenko will get only a thin slice of the 1.3 mln
votes earned by the pro-NATO Grytsenko, who maintains his firm opposition to the
president because of his “five years of lies, corruption and plundering,” as he
alleged this morning.

All these factors make Zelenskiy the easy favorite
in the runoff, scheduled for Apr. 21. However, we still believe Poroshenko has
the ability to bring enough voters to his side in the next 2.5 weeks given his
wide access to state resources, as well as control of at least three television
networks directly, and another three indirectly. He may be able to strike fear
into enough Ukrainians that the Russians will take over if he’s gone, but so
far that strategy isn’t working.