Ukraine's Servant of the People Captures Parliament

There were parliamentary elections in Ukraine yesterday. The new Servant of the People Party, named after president Volodymyr Zelensky's sitcom, appears to have won an outright majority, currently projected at 246-249 seats out of 424 seats. The pro-Russian Opposition Platform is running a distant second; Poroshenko's European Solidarity third; Yulia Tymoshenko's Fatherland fourth; and a new party, Voice, led by Ukrainian rocker Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, was last.

Turnout at just under 50% was about on par with the 2018 U.S. midterms.

What's interesting to me is how dour and elliptical the coverage in The New York Times has been of the Zelensky phenomenom. The dispatch by Ivan Nechepurenko, "In Ukraine Snap Elections, New President Aims to Consolidate Power," makes nary a mention of what Servant of the People actually promises to deliver, and that's a peace deal with the separatist eastern part of the country.

The Reuters story is much better in this regard in that it actually identifies what Servant of the People stands for: greater investment by the West, along with greater integration with NATO and the EU; anti-corruption; and peace:

Since defeating Poroshenko by a landslide in April’s presidential race, Zelenskiy has promised to keep Ukraine on a pro-Western course and seek a new aid-for-reforms program with the International Monetary Fund.

He has also pledged to find a lasting peace in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region, where war between Kiev’s forces and Russian-backed armed separatists has killed 13,000 in five years since Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014.

His back-to-back election victories “create the necessary support for the newly elected president to implement much-needed and long-delayed reforms,” a note by Citi said.

Markets welcomed the prospect of a period of political stability, with some of Ukraine’s dollar-denominated sovereign bonds rising to their highest since early 2018.

[snip]

Zelenskiy will now have to manage the high expectations that his large mandate has generated.

A pre-election survey by the Washington-based National Democratic Institute said 45% of voters expected Zelenskiy to negotiate a peace in the Donbass within 12 months — the biggest single priority among voters.

But 57% would not accept peace at the cost of allowing Crimea to become a recognized part of Russia — something Moscow is likely to insist on — and 62% would not accept peace if Donbass did not return to Kiev’s full control.

More than half of respondents also expected Ukraine to be a member of the European Union by 2030.

This smells like a push poll. The New York Times has downplayed Zelensky because Washington wants Ukraine as an anti-Russian warfare state. Period. End of story. Peaceful integration with the European Union is not the point. (Remember "Fuck the EU!")

Let's hope Zelensky can deliver peace in a year. It would be an enormous win for people power.