With nearly all the votes counted in Ukraine, television star Volodymyr Zelenskiy is projected to win the country’s presidential runoff vote in a landslide.
Ukraine’s Central Election Commission yesterday said that Zelenskiy had won 73 percent of the vote, while Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko got just 24 percent support, with more than 96 percent of the ballots counted.
Unlike in most of the elections in Ukraine’s post-Soviet history, Zelenskiy appears to have won both in Ukraine’s west and east, areas that have been traditionally polarized.
Photo: AFP
One of the campaign slogans of the popular comedian, who has no previous political experience, was to unify Ukraine, which has been torn by bitter debates over its identity as well as the separatist conflict in the east that is fueled by Russia.
Even with a landslide to give him a powerful mandate for change, Zelenskiy has daunting challenges ahead.
The simmering, deadly conflict in eastern Ukraine and the conundrum over Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea are likely to dominate the agenda of the man who up until now has only played the president in a TV sitcom.
Zelenskiy, a Russian speaker from central Ukraine has promised to step up efforts to reintegrate the east back into Ukraine’s fold, but has offered no details on how he is going to do that.
A political novice, 41-year-old Zelenskiy will also have to face off against Russian President Vladimir Putin if he wants to mend relations with Ukraine’s neighbor.
Officials in Moscow yesterday sounded cautiously optimistic, but also condescending about Zelenskiy’s victory.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, whose government has been supplying the separatists with weapons and manpower, said on his Facebook page yesterday morning that the results show “there is a chance to improve the relations with our country after all.”
He said he hoped Zelenskiy would be “pragmatic and responsible” when tackling separatism.
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
RSS