Ukrainian Entertainer Zelenskiy May Win Presidential Election In Event Of Runoff - Poll

Fakhir Rizvi Published November 22, 2018 | 10:52 PM

Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a Ukrainian comedian and entertainer, may win the 2019 presidential election in Ukraine if he manages to make it into the second round together with ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who heads the pro-European party Batkivshchyna (Fatherland), a poll by the organization Sociopolis: Social, Political and Market Research showed on Thursday.

KIEV (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd November, 2018) Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a Ukrainian comedian and entertainer, may win the 2019 presidential election in Ukraine if he manages to make it into the second round together with ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who heads the pro-European party Batkivshchyna (Fatherland), a poll by the organization Sociopolis: Social, Political and Market Research showed on Thursday.

Ukrainians will go to the polls in spring to elect a new president, the race for which will officially start in late December. Neither incumbent President Petro Poroshenko nor Zelenskiy have officially announced their intention to run. Tymoshenko has been leading in the polls for several months.

"The results of the survey indicate that none of the potential candidates for the presidency of Ukraine will be able to gain more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round of election. It is therefore very likely that the second round of the election will happen.

If the presidential election in Ukraine was held in the first half of November 2018, then Yulia Tymoshenko and Volodymyr Zelenskiy would most likely go into the second round," the pollster said.

At the same time, 28.4 percent of respondents said they would vote for Zelenskiy and 24.7 percent for Tymoshenko in the event of a runoff election.

The pollster noted that taking into account the statistical error and undecided respondents, both candidates "have approximately equal chances of victory" if there is a second round.

As for the first half of November, Tymoshenko is leading the polls with 14.7 percent of all respondents ready to vote for her. A total of 9.4 percent of all respondents would support Zelenskiy and only 6.2 percent would vote for Poroshenko.

The poll was conducted on November 8-16 among a total of 2,403 respondents in 139 Ukrainians cities and settlements.