Early results in Ukraine’s presidential election show a comedian with no political experience maintaining his strong lead against the incumbent president in the first round, setting the stage for a run-off in three weeks. Early results in Ukraine’s presidential election show a comedian with no political experience maintaining his strong lead against the incumbent president in the first round, setting the stage for a run-off in three weeks. With just over half of the votes counted on Monday, Volodymyr Zelenskiy had 30.2% of the vote. They hope he can offer a new approach to settling the grinding conflict with Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. After the vote Poroshenko hit back at Zelenskiy, describing him as a pawn of self-exiled billionaire businessman Igor Kolomoyskyi, charges that Zelenskiy denies.

Source: Irish Independent April 01, 2019 07:03 UTC