In April 2019, comedian Vladimir Zelensky defeated in a landslide incumbent Pyotr Poroshenko in the Ukrainian presidential election. It was an instance of life imitating art. In a TV series called ‘Servant of the People’, Zelensky played the role of a school teacher who launches a quixotic bid for the presidency running as an anti-corruption crusader. The series, which became wildly popular, aired on the TV channel 1+1, majority owned by Kolomoysky’s 1+1 Media Group.
Zelensky positioned himself as the consummate outsider. During the election campaign, he preferred posting light-hearted videos to social media – and giving vague promises to stamp out corruption – over giving serious interviews or discussing policy. He did, however, promise to stop the war in Donbass and, being a Russian speaker himself, opposed the rigid language policies of Poroshenko.
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