On Monday, as Ukraine braced for a possible Russian invasion and a new wave of Covid-19, President Volodymyr Zelensky held an event on digital transformation that resembled something from Apple founder Steve Jobs’ handbook.
Flashy graphics and cool suits framed a presentation that included a promise to gift smartphones with deep discounts and a preferential internet rate for all seniors in Ukraine who are fully vaccinated.
The event may have been timed to deflect attention from the current crisis, or perhaps simply as a continuation of Zelensky’s electoral promise to transform Ukraine into a more digital country.
Whatever the reason, the smartphone announcement didn’t give the impression that Zelensky was one of the most important of the moment, the greatest military threat to Ukraine in modern history.
Nearly halfway through a five-year term, Zelensky may be wondering why his leap from television comedian to politics isn’t reflecting the smooth ride to power portrayed on his former show.
In it, Zelensky portrays a poor professor who accidentally becomes president, triggering a dramatic struggle for influence between his character and greedy oligarchs.
The real-life version has been very different. A few months after being elected to office in a euphoric landslide, Zelensky was embroiled in a scandal involving another politician-turned-showman, former President Donald Trump.
The American leader survived an impeachment inquiry in his attempt to put pressure on Zelensky for trying to obtain information about his electoral opponent and now president Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
The following years brought a different kind of challenge to Ukrainian governance: Covid-19. Last month, Ukraine passed the grim mark of 100,000 deaths and now has one of the highest per capita death rates in the world, according to research from Johns Hopkins University. The country’s vaccination program also lags significantly behind the rest of Europe, including France, Germany and the United Kingdom, with just over 33% of the population fully vaccinated.
It was as brutal a baptism into politics as could be asked, likely compounded by Zelensky bringing into the corridors of power friends who had never served in politics before, like his assistant Andriy Yermak.
Initially, there were legitimate doubts about Zelensky, who was supported by billionaire Igor Kolomoisky, who helped propel him into office with money and favorable coverage on his television channels.
Those ties have frayed, but the media in Ukraine continue to report the influence of business figures and people with political connections on the politician.
Now, with the drumbeat of war sounding louder than ever with the threat that the Russians could take more Ukrainian territory, Zelensky’s credentials to hold the post are increasingly being seen by a nation nervous as the days and months ahead. ; questioning whether the former comedian will succumb to the pressure.
And it could threaten the legacy of a man who promised voters during his election campaign to end the war in eastern Ukraine. It was a monumental promise and one that likely helped him defeat former President Petro Poroshenko.
Indeed, angered by Zelensky’s victory, Poroshenko said on election night that the Russian government would welcome the election of a “new inexperienced” president of Ukraine who could be returned to Russia’s sphere of influence.
There were other unfulfilled promises from Zelensky, such as not running for a second term and not cracking down on corruption in the justice system.
Whether the policy of gifting smartphones to seniors will be transformative is questionable. Seniors in Ukraine tend to use simple phones rather than smartphones, and pensions are so low (about $80 a month) that a discount is unlikely to get them online. An estimated three million Ukrainians live in villages where there is no internet connection.
The ad seemed out of place for a president facing war on his doorstep. In fact, a recent survey by the Razumkov Center, a non-governmental think tank, found that over 55% of respondents did not believe the Ukrainian government was making enough diplomatic and defense efforts to prevent a full-scale Russian invasion.
Of the 1,206 people interviewed across Ukraine (excluding Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions), more than 55% also believed that Zelensky would not be an effective commander-in-chief and organize the country’s defense in the event of a Russian invasion.
“Both Zelensky and his government are paying the price for the mistakes they made over the past two years,” said Olga Rudenko, editor-in-chief of the Kyiv Independent newspaper.
Zelensky’s mixed messages about the threat from Russia also failed to inspire confidence in his presidential capabilities, Rudenko said.
She pointed to a speech last month in which the president said that despite dire warnings from Washington about the threat of an imminent invasion, Ukrainians should get on with their lives as normal. But the next day, in an interview with the Washington Post, Zelensky said that Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, could be occupied.
Zelensky is, of course, the latest in a long list of big-screen showmen who have made the leap into politics, the most obvious being Trump. But let’s not forget Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In Europe too, France’s far-right television commentator Eric Zemmour is a presidential candidate this year. And long before he was prime minister, Boris Johnson made regular appearances on the satirical panel “Have I Got News for You” as a journalist.
If there’s one quality that seems to unite most of these, it’s a gift for getting rid of scandal. Even Johnson, at least temporarily, managed to change the channel on damaging coverage of his “partygate” scandal, focusing on the Ukraine crisis and traveling to Kiev.
Many see the 2015 Minsk Accord – drawn up in the Belarusian capital in an attempt to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine – as wildly flawed, with conditions that do not favor the country.
Now, with Ukraine facing one of the most existential challenges in the country’s modern history, Zelensky must take more of his hat than smartphones. If ever there was a time for him to resist maneuvering and summon a statist style of leadership, this is it. For Ukrainians and for the world, this is no laughing matter.
Source: CNN Brasil
I’m James Harper, a highly experienced and accomplished news writer for World Stock Market. I have been writing in the Politics section of the website for over five years, providing readers with up-to-date and insightful information about current events in politics. My work is widely read and respected by many industry professionals as well as laymen.
