Home › Politics › Zelensky and Poroshenko head to a runoff
Zelensky and Poroshenko head to a runoff
Summary
A look back at the first-round result in Ukraine's 2019 presidential election and the second round it set up.
What did the first round of Ukraine's presidential election actually settle? As reported on 3 April 2019, it settled who would go forward, though not who would win.
Volodymyr Zelensky won the first round with 30 percent of the vote. President Petro Poroshenko came second with 15 percent. Voter turnout was 63 percent.
No candidate reached the share of the vote required to take the presidency outright. A runoff between the two leading candidates was therefore scheduled for 21 April.
What the ballot looked like
The vote itself took place on 31 March 2019. Thirty-nine candidates were on the ballot, and none won an absolute majority in the initial vote. Zelensky was a television personality, and Poroshenko was the incumbent.
What came later
The runoff was held on 21 April 2019, as scheduled. The Central Election Commission later announced that Zelensky had won the second round with 73.22 percent of the vote. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe recognised the elections as free and fair.
Elsewhere in the news
On 2 April 2019, a day before the first-round result was reported, Russia opened a helicopter training facility in Venezuela. Under the plans, the state-owned company Rostec would train Venezuelan pilots to operate Mi-35M gunships and transport helicopters. As reported at the time, the move followed a White House warning to Moscow against sending troops or military equipment to the country.
