Abstract
The chapter focuses on the phenomenon “Volodymyr Zelenskyi”, and the factors which helped him as a newcomer in Ukrainian politics to win the 2019 presidential election. Olga Mashtaler identifies his media strategies and populist communication techniques paying particular attention to claims to authenticity in his political campaigning, as well as to contrasting these representations with the discourse of Zelenskyi’s main opponent Petro Poroshenko. It thus becomes apparent what roles were played by references to history and memory, the Soviet heritage and current “West or East” choices, the present conflict with Russia and related linguistic-identitarian issues as well as the media—both as disseminators and creators of populist messages—in Ukraine’s 2019 presidential election.
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Notes
- 1.
The greatest previous difference was seen in 1999, between Leonid Kuchma (56.25%) and Petro Symonenko (37.80%).
- 2.
All translations from Ukrainian, Russian and Polish are mine.
- 3.
- 4.
For more on these and other candidates, see Miller et al. (2019).
- 5.
Vladimir Zelenskiy obyavil ob uchastii v vyborakh Prezidenta Ukrainy [Volodymyr Zelenskyi Announced His Participation in Presidential Election]. YouTube, 1 January 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QZ20g-UW2o. Accessed 25 March 2019.
- 6.
KVN was a Soviet TV comedy show, later also produced in post-communist countries; an abbreviation of Klub Vesyolykh i Nakhodchivykh (Club of Funny and Inventive People).
- 7.
This term was used in reference to the historical term describing a political situation in Ukrainian history during the second half of the seventeenth century.
- 8.
Until February 2020, when he was replaced by Andriy Yermak.
- 9.
- 10.
The law removing the immunity of MPs was adopted in September 2019 and came into force on 1 January 2020.
- 11.
Not implemented in reality; Zelenskyi did unite some ministries and renamed the President’s Administration the President’s Office; however, the option of a change of premises for the latter did not move beyond the discussion phase.
- 12.
During the first month of his presidency Zelenskyi held several meetings with oligarchs, having agreed their participation in certain social or investment-related initiatives (RBC-Ukraine 2019).
- 13.
The mobile application “Diya” created by the government and making available a range of electronic services started to operate in December 2019.
- 14.
See Zhyrinoskyi’s speech in a programme on TV channel “Russia 1”. YouTube, 2 April 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bMYEy2i7XE. Accessed 1 June 2019.
- 15.
Gubarev podderzhal Zelenskogo [Gubarev supported Zelenskyi]. YouTube, 10 April 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc7fT1lOj2g. Accessed 1 June 2019.
- 16.
Sviatoslav Vakarchuk. YouTube, 27 March 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVGn9brDOic. Accessed 1 June 2019.
- 17.
278,000 in April 2019.
- 18.
In September 2019 this number had reached 8.1 million.
- 19.
https://zekubiki.com/, where “Kubiki” means “abs” and “Ze” is a part of hashtag associated with Zelenskyi (Ze-President, Ze-team, etc).
- 20.
Zelenskyi: interview in the gym, YouTube, 5 June 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKZkzvWys60. Accessed 16 September 2019.
- 21.
- 22.
- 23.
- 24.
- 25.
ECFR interview with Yevhen Fedchenko, StopFake, Kyiv, 25 June 2019, cited in Hosa and Wilson (2019).
- 26.
See also an interview with Mykhailo Minakov. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74RE3yajzBE&feature=share. Accessed 14 September 2019.
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Mashtaler, O. (2021). The 2019 Presidential Election in Ukraine: Populism, the Influence of the Media, and the Victory of the Virtual Candidate. In: Kohl, C., Christophe, B., Liebau, H., Saupe, A. (eds) The Politics of Authenticity and Populist Discourses. Global Political Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55474-3_7
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