Ukraine comedian V. Zelensky in a runoff vote for Ukraine's presidency

[dukkha]

Kiev, Ukraine - Comedian Volodymyr Zelensky will face incumbent President Petro Poroshenko in a runoff vote for Ukraine's presidency, official preliminary results have shown.

With more than 50 percent of votes counted, Ukraine's Central Election Commission showed Zelensky, a political novice who is better known for playing a president in a TV sitcom, had secured 30.2 percent of the votes cast on Sunday.

"This is just a first step towards a great victory," he told supporters on Sunday after the publication of the exit polls which showed a similar result.

According the official early count, only 16.6 percent of votes were cast in favour of Poroshenko, who has been in power since 2014.

"I critically and soberly understand the signal that society gave today to the acting authorities," he said, accepting the results.

It was a different story for opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, who came third according to both the exit polls (14 percent) and the official early count (13 percent), but believed she secured enough votes to be in second place.

"I urge not to consider exit polls as the ultimate truth. This is an absolutely manipulative dishonest thing," said Tymoshenko, who has sought the presidency twice before.

According to CEC the voter turnout stood at 63.4 percent.

The decisive runoff will take place on April 21.

[dukkha]

Zelensky's foreign policy

Dmytro Razumkov, Zelensky's political aide, told Al Jazeera that if the comedian won the second round of voting he would stand by the Minsk Agreement.

The accord was forged by France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia - the countries involved in talks known as the Normandy Format - to secure a truce in the country's east between the Moscow-backed rebels and the Ukrainian army that was the backbone in Ukraine's security forces.
Ukraine election - Comedian more popular than President Poroshenko

"All sanctions put in place by the European Union against Russia are linked to the Minsk Agreement. If we try to annul it, we might lose these sanctions. It can't be," Razumkov said, speaking after Zelensky's speech at his campaign headquarters in Kiev.

"Zelensky's proposal is to add the United Kingdom and the United States to the Normandy Format as the signatories of the Budapest Memorandum to apply a joint pressure on Russia like a laser beam."

Under Zelensky, Razumkov said, Ukraine would continue to aspire to join the European Union and NATO, but it would hold a referendum on the issues only when the chance of doing so was realistic.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/...171422240.html

[dukkha]

NATO in the Black Sea,, the US a signatory to the Normandy Format - and Ukraine aspirations for NATO.

Do you really want to be backing Ukraine in a war against Russia? -sounds like a disaster in the making.