section_path: 2019 presidential campaign
section_name: 2019 presidential campaign
paragraph_text: 2019 presidential campaign
  
  In March 2018, members of Zelenskyy's production company Kvartal 95 registered a new political party called Servant of the People – the same name as the television program that Zelenskyy had starred in over the previous three years. Although Zelenskyy denied any immediate plans to enter politics and said he had registered the party name only to prevent it being appropriated by others, there was widespread speculation that he was planning to run. As early as October 2018, three months before his campaign announcement and six months before the presidential election, he was already a frontrunner in opinion polls. After months of ambiguous statements, on 31 December, less than four months from the election, Zelenskyy announced his candidacy for president of Ukraine on the New Year's Eve evening show on the TV channel 1+1. His announcement up-staged the New Year's Eve address of incumbent president Petro Poroshenko on the same channel, which Zelenskyy said was unintentional and attributed to a technical glitch.
  
  Zelenskyy's presidential campaign against Poroshenko was almost entirely virtual. He did not release a detailed policy platform and his engagement with mainstream media was minimal; he instead reached out to the electorate via social media channels and YouTube clips. In place of traditional campaign rallies, he conducted stand-up comedy routines across Ukraine with his production company Kvartal 95. On 16 April 2019, a few days before the election, 20 Ukrainian news outlets called on Zelenskyy to "stop avoiding journalists". Zelenskyy stated that he was not hiding from journalists but that he did not want to go to talk shows where "people of the old power" were "just doing PR " and that he did not have time to satisfy all interview requests.
  
  Zelenskyy styled himself as an anti-establishment, anti-corruption figure, and said he wished to restore trust in politicians, "to bring professional, decent people to power" and to "change the mood and timbre of the political establishment". Atlantic Council member Anders Aslund said Zelenskyy was not a populist; however, other scholars have analysed Zelenskyy's politics in the framework of populism. For instance, political scientist Volodymyr Kulyk described Zelenskyy as practising "inclusionary" populism that claims to defend "the people" against "the elite" while defining "the people" in a way inclusive of all ethnic, linguistic, religious, and other groups. Scholar Kostiantyn Yanchenko described Zelenskyy's campaign as characterised by "populist hyperreality " constructed by the Servant of the People series and Zelenskyy's other comedy shows, and argued along with fellow scholar Mattia Zulianello that Zelenskyy and his party were examples of "valence populism" focused on "non-positional topics, such as anti-corruption appeals, political transparency and moral integrity", rather than "economic and socio-cultural issues".
  
  Before the elections, Zelenskyy presented a team that included former finance minister Oleksandr Danylyuk and others. During the campaign, concerns were raised over his links to the oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi, a billionaire businessman who had gained control of the 1+1 Media Group in 2010. The group operates eight Ukrainian TV channels and broadcast the Servant of the People TV series from 2015 until 2019, featuring Zelenskyy playing the President of Ukraine.
  
  Poroshenko and his supporters claimed that Zelenskyy's victory would benefit Russia. On 19 April 2019 at Olimpiyskiy National Sports Complex presidential debates were held in the form of a show. In his introductory speech, Zelenskyy acknowledged that in 2014 he voted for Poroshenko, but "I was mistaken. We were mistaken. We voted for one Poroshenko, but received another. The first appears when there are video cameras, the other Petro sends Medvedchuk privietiki (greetings) to Moscow." Although Zelenskyy initially said he would serve only a single term, he walked back this promise in May 2021, saying he had not yet made up his mind.
  
  Zelenskyy stated that as president he would develop the economy and attract investment to Ukraine through "a restart of the judicial system " and restoring confidence in the state. He also proposed a tax amnesty and a 5-per-cent flat tax for big business which could be increased "in dialogue with them and if everyone agrees". According to Zelenskyy, if people would notice that his new government "works honestly from the first day", they would start paying their taxes.
  
  Zelenskyy achieved a plurality of the electorate (30%) in the first round of elections on 31 March 2019. In the second round, on 21 April 2019, he received 73 percent of the vote to Poroshenko's 25 percent and was elected President of Ukraine. Polish president Andrzej Duda was one of the first European leaders to congratulate Zelenskyy. French president Emmanuel Macron received Zelenskyy at the Élysée Palace in Paris on 12 April 2019. On 22 April, U.S. president Donald Trump congratulated Zelenskyy on his victory over the telephone. European Commission president Jean Claude Juncker and European Council president Donald Tusk also issued a joint letter of congratulations and stated that the European Union (EU) will work to speed up the implementation of the remainder of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, including the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area.
  
  In October 2021, the Pandora Papers revealed that Zelenskyy, his chief aide, and the head of the Security Service of Ukraine Ivan Bakanov operated a network of offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus, and Belize. These companies included some that owned expensive London property. Around the time of his 2019 election, Zelenskyy handed his shares in a key offshore company over to Serhiy Shefir, but the two men appear to have arranged for Zelenskyy's family to continue receiving the money from these companies. Zelenskyy's election campaign had centred on pledges to clean up the government of Ukraine.