Ukraine: Polls show Zelensky winning 73% of the vote, beating incumbent President Petro Poroshenko in the run-off elections

Exit polls show Volodymyr Zelensky has won a major victory over incumbent Petro Poroshenko. The comedian plays the role of president in a fiction television sit-com.

Ukraine’s president holds significant powers over the security, defence and foreign policy of the country.

After voting on Sunday, Mr Zelensky said: “Today it will be the victory of Ukrainians, the victory of Ukraine, and – I hope – the victory of a fair choice.”

If polls are correct he will be elected for a five-year term.

In Depth – NYT

Volodymyr Zelensky, a 41-year-old comic actor who has never held public office, won more than 70 percent of the vote, a decisive victory over the incumbent president, Petro O. Poroshenko, according to exit polling by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation.

Mr. Zelensky’s victory, if confirmed by official results, would give Ukraine its first Jewish leader and deliver a stinging rebuke to a political and business establishment represented by Mr. Poroshenko, a billionaire candy tycoon who campaigned on the nationalist slogan “army, language, faith.”

After five years of grinding war with Russian proxies in the east of Ukraine, voters appeared to send a signal that they were more concerned with the internal menaces of corruption and poverty — ignoring Mr. Poroshenko’s warning, delivered after he cast his own ballot on Sunday, that voting for a comedian “is not funny” and could lead to “painful” consequences.