savior complex

a curtain-raiser on Ukraine's presidential election

The last time I was in Ukraine, about a year ago, I left quite depressed.

Fourteen months before the scheduled presidential election, the country’s top politicians were beginning to refocus; in their public outreach, they talked about their accomplishments. But in their day-to-day work, they avoided making any difficult decisions that might endanger their support. The official campaign wouldn’t start for another nine months, but all eyes were already on the 2019 election. And the people were having none of it.

The field of over 40 candidates had not yet solidified, but everyone assumed that their eventual choice would be between Petro Poroshenko, the incumbent President, and Yulia Tymoshenko, former gas magnate, Prime Minister, and political prisoner who is often rather clumsily compared to Hillary Clinton.

My friends were nothing but jaded about their “choice.” Many of these young people — who had risked their lives on the Maidan a few years before and since dedicated their waking moments to making Ukraine a better place — told me they wouldn’t be voting at all, unless a new face appeared. Ukraine needed someone completely untouched by the filth, corruption, and lack of action that categorized its political scene since independence, they said. I rattled off the names of some young reformers in parliament, activists-turned-politicians who had been the movers and shakers of Maidan. Would they do? According to my friends, no. Even they had been crushed by the wheel of Ukrainian politics, rendered too broken for further use. As in almost every election in the past 20 years, Ukraine was looking for a savior. Anyone short of savior status need not apply.

This phenomenon was widespread. In a December 2018 poll, the National Democratic Institute found that 44 per cent of voters had no preference for a candidate. “Favorites” Poroshenko and Tymoshenko were polling at just 6 and 13 per cent, respectively.

And then, on New Year’s Eve, in answer to many Ukrainians’ political prayers, comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced his candidacy. It gets weirder: in his show Servant of the People, Zelenskiy plays a history teacher who becomes president after his profanity-laced rant about corruption in Ukraine goes viral. After his election (funded by a crowdfunding campaign organized by his students), Zelenskiy’s character discovers, like Alexander Hamilton, that “winning is easy, young man, governing’s harder.” He begins the difficult work of fending off oligarchs, spies, and assasination attempts while trying to improve life for ordinary Ukrainians.

The show is actually full of incisive political commentary about Ukraine. It’s legitimately funny. And piece by piece, it’s being replicated in Zelenskiy’s actual campaign. His nascent political party is named Servant of the People. He crowdfunded his campaign and crowdsourced his platform. When a recent corruption scandal involving Poroshenko’s inner circle broke, he posted an angry Instagram video lambasting the current state of affairs.

And he’s leading in the polls. One recent survey shows Zelenskiy with 25 per cent support, while Poroshenko and Tymoshenko struggle for second place around 16 per cent.

Reports indicate he’s been wooing diplomats and international officials alike, but the Ukraine that political novice Zelenskiy or any other winner would inherit is no walk in the park: the UN recently announced that the death toll of Russia’s war in Ukraine is up to 13,000, with a quarter of that number civilian casualties. Quality of life in Ukraine is not improving; salaries are meager while tariffs and prices rise. Corruption persists. Making the situation more complex, Russia uses these wedge issues to drive disinformation; in January, Facebook took down hundreds of pages controlled by Russian state-owned propaganda outlet Sputnik that were masquerading as local Ukrainian news outlets.

It’s already a complex election period, and one that might be instructive for the US and other Western democracies in this era of crisis for truth and trust. That’s why I’m returning to Ukraine next week. Along with several pieces on disinformation, language politics, and the media landscape, I’ll be sending out missives twice a week here. They’ll include my on-the-ground observations, as well as some photos, video, and audio, and will be sent directly to subscribers’ inboxes.

You can support my work by subscribing for a mere $10 ($5/month for each month I’m in Ukraine):

I look forward to sending you a twice-weekly postcard from Ukraine and the discussions that will follow.