Comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, incumbent Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, and former Ukrainian Prime Minister and leader of the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party Yulia Tymoshenko, according to opinion polls, are the main rivals in the March 31 presidential election
KIEV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th March, 2019) Comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, incumbent Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, and former Ukrainian Prime Minister and leader of the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party Yulia Tymoshenko, according to opinion polls, are the main rivals in the March 31 presidential election.Their electorate is represented in all age groups and regions of the country, but, according to experts, still has some fundamental differences.
In particular, Zelenskiy is supported by young people under 40 who live in cities. The southeast of Ukraine supports him the most, as he is one of the few politicians who do not hesitate to speak Russian.
Tymoshenko is mainly supported by Ukrainian women of pre-retirement and retirement age living in rural areas or small towns. Traditionally, central Ukraine supports Tymoshenko the most.
There are both young people and pensioners among Poroshenko's supporters. Middle-class Ukrainians with higher education and those who live in western Ukraine mainly prefer Poroshenko.
According to a study conducted by Ukrainian sociological group Rating, Zelenskiy has been in the lead in the electoral race for the second month in a row, gaining 24.7 percent support from those who intend to vote. The poll puts Tymoshenko in second place in the race for the Ukrainian presidency with projected 18.3 percent of votes. Incumbent Petro Poroshenko came in third with 16.8 percent.
However, according to experts, all this will not matter on election day, as Poroshenko allegedly has a plan B on how to prevent his opponents, Zelenskiy and Tymoshenko, from coming to power.
Polling and research data indicate that more and more Ukrainians are dissatisfied with the situation in the country. The vast majority of them complain about the inability of the authorities to bring order to the economy, in particular, about high tariffs, low salaries and pensions, and serious corruption among officials. The conflict in Donbas, which gets people killed and "bleeds dry" the country's budget, is still the cause of dissatisfaction among the population. In this regard, the society wants to see new faces in politics. One of these new faces is Zelenskiy, who managed to unite the majority of the system's opponents around himself.
Young people living in cities between the ages of 18 and 40 are among the entertainer's electorate. Many supporters of the actor associate him with the main character of a tv show called Servant of the People, an honest school teacher named Vasyl Holoborodko, played by Zelenskiy, who becomes the president and begins to fight corruption and oligarchs. The party that nominated Zelenskiy as its candidate in the presidential election is the namesake of the show.
"Many well-resourced people support him. This is the middle class or wealthy people, who indicate that they are unemployed, which means that they are employed in the shadow sectors of the economy. This is the bulk of his electorate," Ruslan Bortnik, a political scientist at the Ukrainian Institute for Analysis and Management of Policy, told Sputnik.
At the same time, experts note that the emtertainer has every chance to expand his electorate. This is confirmed by a sociological survey conducted by Active Group, according to which 8.9 percent of respondents are ready to vote for Zelenskiy if the candidate whom they wanted to support in the first place does not stand in the election.
Head of the Penta Center for Applied Political Studies Volodymyr Fesenko thinks that Zelenskiy also has a chance to get the votes of those who have not yet decided on their favorite, but still want to make the vote.
"It is worth noting that one third of the 'undecided' voters trusts Zelenskiy, and this is the highest number," Fesenko wrote in a Facebook post.
According to political analyst Petro Oleshchuk, the current president's disapproval rating can also add scores to the showman in the electoral race. The political analyst noted that the electorate's confidence in the victory of the actor was only growing, as was also illustrated by the data of the bookmaker agencies.
"It seems unlikely that some factors will ensure that Zelenskiy is squeezed out of the presidential game," Oleshchuk wrote on social media.
Tymoshenko's electorate is slightly different from Zelenskiy's supporters. There are significantly fewer men among her electorate. People who live in poverty or have low income, and those who mostly do not have higher education give their preference to Tymoshenko.
"She is supported by all segments of the population, but mainly by the poor pensioners and socially unprotected segments of the population," Bortnik said.
Traditionally, Tymoshenko has most of her support in central Ukraine. Very few supporters of the ex-prime minister live in the east - in Donetsk, Luhansk or Kharkiv regions. At the same time, she shares leading positions with Zelenskiy in the southern regions, and with Poroshenko in the west.
According to political analyst Yelena Dyachenko, Tymoshenko, like Zelenskiy, will have to defend her voters on election day. The situation with supporters of the former prime minister is aggravated by her promise to imprison the incumbent president and his team in case she wins the election.
"The protection of votes will also concern her. It is obvious that the powerful Poroshenko's team will stop at nothing. They are practically cornered, and the question of physical survival, avoiding imprisonment and criminal prosecution for Poroshenko's team is very important. Anything can be expected, including force scenarios in each individual [polling] station," the expert explained.
POROSHENKO'S 'FRESH' PENSIONERS
The electorate of the current Ukrainian president is mixed. There are both young people and pensioners among Poroshenko's supporters. Basically, Ukrainians who have a higher education and belong to the middle class give their preference to him. Some representatives of Ukrainian businesses also support Poroshenko as a politician who knows how to negotiate with international investors and is accepted by the West.
"Poroshenko has the middle class and pensioners. Especially, he has many supporters in the ranks of the 'newest' pensioners, the ones who have just retired," Bortnik said.
At the same time, according to the expert, middle-aged and elderly people living in western Ukraine trust the incumbent president the most.
Experts note that in the second round Poroshenko can accumulate the votes of some nationalists if their candidate does not make it to the final round of election. In the previous election race in 2014, the nationalists fully supported Poroshenko, but their support diminished after a number of scandals with the persecution of radicals, as well as with corruption in the army.
In 2018, Poroshenko's support expanded because of the tomos of autocephaly of the new church in Ukraine. Therefore, supporters of the split can also add points to Poroshenko in the vote.
The new church in Ukraine was created on the initiative of Poroshenko on the basis of non-canonical structures, and it is not recognized by local churches. The independence decree, or tomos, it received from Constantinople does not make it fully independent.
Dyachenko believes that Zelenskiy has the greatest chances of winning the presidential election in Ukraine, but his victory can be prevented by plan B of the current head of state Poroshenko, namely, with the use of force scenario at the polling stations.
"I do not rule out such a scenario that, very close to the election, Poroshenko's team will see its very low ratings and will go for some not quite legal B scenario, which they certainly have, and then the situation in the country can simply get out of control," Dyachenko told Sputnik.
The expert expressed the opinion that Zelenskiy or Tymoshenko could win the presidential election, if only Poroshenko's team did not violate electoral legislation on election day.
Despite the fact that there are a large number of undecided voters in Ukraine, their votes will not seriously impact the results of the election. Dyachenko is confident that in the first round, the votes would proportionally be divided between the three favorites of the race, and in the second round they will be divided between the finalists. There is a small chance that Zelenskiy will get a bigger piece of the pie.
This is confirmed by sociological research, which say that every tenth voter gives his or her vote to Zelenskiy, Tymoshenko or Poroshenko only because these politicians have high ratings, and therefore, higher chances of winning.
Bortnik also believes that Zelenskiy has the greatest chances of winning.
"I think that Tymoshenko and Poroshenko can still exchange places [in the ranking], but Zelenskiy's first place is likely to remain in the ratings until March 31. Some crucial, explosive things can hardly be expected, because there is very little time left, and even great news stories will not affect inertial public opinion quickly enough," Bortnik noted.
According to the expert, there will be a large number of those who will not go to vote at all, since "the undecided are mostly people who are the least motivated."
