Briefly referring to the upcoming elections at the time, we earlier placed a detailed case study as to why Ukraine so important to Russia including the split historical experience that led to Putin’s claim that most of Ukraine “was given” to Russia.

Of relevance again Ukraine will head to the polls on Sunday to elect a new parliament, this after Volodymyr Zelenskyi dissolved the parliament following his landslide victory against Petro Poroshenko in April, bringing elections forward by several months.

Zelenskyi's Servant of the People party is expected to win with the latest polls crediting it with between 40% and 50% of the vote, not quite enough for an outright majority. Whereby Zelensky’s party hopes to form a coalition with rock star Svyatoslav Vakarchuk's Holos party.

The current situation is symptomatic of Ukrainian’s thirst for a new style of politics in a country plagued with corruption, cemented by the potent influence of the country’s oligarchs. Earlier this year a Gallup poll found that for the second year in a row, Ukrainians’ confidence in their government was at the lowest level in the world, at 9 percent.

There also is a very fresh precedent for a successful shift from big-time entertainment to big-time politics in Ukraine: Comic actor Volodymyr Zelenskiy parlayed the fame he gained playing an accidental president in a TV sitcom into a landslide win in the real presidential election in April.

Not surprising at least a dozen celebrities are running for parliament, inspired by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s victory in April.

Holos and Servant of the People, have also vowed not to include any former lawmakers in the ranks of their party lists, and as a result, some 50 to 70 percent of the next parliament is expected to be entirely new faces, leaving Ukraine’s future almost entirely in the hands of political novices.

The prospect presents a relatively unique test case for democratic reforms in the world, and its success, or failure, could serve as a test case for other countries in the former Soviet Union.

 

 

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