Kyiv on 23 April 2019, two days after the run-off

What did Ukraine look like on 23 April 2019, two days after voters chose a comedian as their next president? The run-off of 21 April had produced a result that exit polls described as decisive: Volodymyr Zelensky won more than 70 percent of the vote against incumbent President Petro Poroshenko, who conceded defeat.

The road to that outcome began on 31 March 2019, when Ukrainians voted in a first round with 39 candidates on the ballot. None of them won an absolute majority, so the two leading vote-getters went to a second round: Zelensky, a television personality, and Poroshenko, the sitting president.

The final count later confirmed what the exit polls had shown. The Central Election Commission announced that Zelensky took 73.22% of the total vote in the second round. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe recognised the elections as free and fair.

For Poroshenko, the concession closed a presidency that ended with defeat at the ballot box. For Zelensky, a figure from television, it marked the move from the screen to the highest office in the country.