President of the European Council Donald Tusk is waiting for the Ukraine-EU summit in July 2019 and talks about this over telephone with the winner of Ukraine’s presidential elections Volodymyr Zelensky. “First, good phone call with Ukraine’s President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky. I assured him of the EU’s steadfast support to Ukraine. Looking forward to our cooperation and EU-Ukraine Summit in July,” he wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.
Tusk also said that he had a telephone conversation with incumbent President Petro Poroshenko, “after 5 years of good cooperation.”
“The competitive, free and fair presidential elections with a peaceful hand over is the best proof of Ukraine’s progress and democracy,” the European Council president noted.
Agribusiness counts on the influence of political authority of newly elected President Volodymyr Zelensky to revitalize the land issue in parliament.
“The land market issue is one of the most exciting. The solution of this issue is largely influenced by the Verkhovna Rada, therefore only political authority can help the guarantor form new rules that have long been in demand by the people,” President of the Ukrainian Grain Association (UGA) Mykola Horbachev told Interfax-Ukraine.
He added that the new president will have to make significant efforts to shift the issue of opening the land market “to a more civilized plane.”
President of the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club (UCAB), CEO of IMC agricultural holding Alex Lissitsa also singled out the land reform as one of the six main areas that requires changes.
In addition, it is necessary to introduce new labor legislation, conduct education and innovation reform, tax liberalization to remove the economy from the shadow, privatization of state-owned property and state-owned companies, as well as partial privatization of Ukrzaliznytsia by allowing private operators to work, Lissitsa said.
The founder of T.B.Fruit group, Taras Barschovsky, agreed with him. He also hopes to speed up the process of opening the land market with the election of Zelensky as head of state.
At the same time, he noted the need for the development of small agricultural enterprises in horticulture and berry-growing, since “only this can save the Ukrainian village.”
Candidates for the presidency in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky and Petro Poroshenko, have gained 73.17% and 24.5% of the vote, respectively, the country’s Central Election Commission (CEC) has said after it processed 90.1% of the voting protocols. Zelensky is leading in all regions, except Lviv region.
As was reported, Zelensky leads with 73% of the runoff vote, according to the National Exit Poll, while incumbent President Petro Poroshenko is supported by 25.5% of voters. According to the TSN’s exit poll, Zelensky was supported by 72.7% and 27.3% voted for Poroshenko. The exit poll results announced on TV Channel 112.Ukraine says that Zelensky got 73.7% of the vote and Poroshenko had 26.3%.
According to the CEC, the voter turnout on April 21 was 62.07%.
Just under a half of Ukrainians (48.4%) said they would vote for Volodymyr Zelensky and 17% for the incumbent, Petro Poroshenko, were the second round of the presidential election held right now, according to the findings of a poll conducted by the Kiyv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on April 9-14. Seventeen point nine per cent were undecided, 1.6% were going to ruin the ballot, 6.3% did not intend to go to the polls and 8.8% refused to answer the question.
KIIS interviewed 2,004 respondents in 129 towns across Ukraine; in Luhansk and Donetsk region, the poll was conducted only in Ukraine-controlled parts of the regions.
The runoff is due to be held on April 21.
Ukrainian presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelensky said he is determined to create a favorable climate for foreign and domestic investments in Ukraine if elected president. “As concerns business relations, economic relations with the West, they are expecting guarantees, they believe they will have a guarantee with a new president. After all, an appropriate climate should appear for both Ukrainian investments and Western investments,” Zelensky said in an interview shown on the Ukraina television channel.
Ukraine should set up a special institution dealing with economic crimes, Zelensky said.
“The law enforcement agencies, such as the Security Service, the Prosecutor General’s Office, and the Interior Ministry, must be deprived of all functions of putting pressure on the business sector and influencing the economy,” he said.
Zelensky insisted on “relaunching” anti-corruption bodies and the Anti-Corruption Court, “because two years have passed, and promises still keep being made, but I think we will be able to do all that.”
The Central Election Commission (CEC) has received data of 99.88% of the protocols in the presidential elections of Ukraine.
Voting data are expected in Vinnytsia region (99.81% of protocols have been processed), in Kyiv region (99.36% of protocols have been processed), in Odesa region (99.31% of protocols have been processed), in Kherson region (99.87% of protocols have been processed), and in Chernivtsi region (98,23% of protocols have been processed).
Presidential candidates Volodymyr Zelensky and incumbent President Petro Poroshenko have received 30.23% and 15.95% of votes cast on March 31, respectively. Thus, they go into a second round of elections.
Some 13.39% of voters cast ballots for Batkivschyna Party leader Yulia Tymoshenko, followed by Opposition Platform – For Life candidate Yuriy Boiko with 11.67%.
Civil Position Party leader Anatoliy Hrytsenko received 6.91%, followed by ex-SBU State Security Service head Ihor Smeshko with 6.04%, Radical Party leader Oleh Liashko with 5.47%, Opposition Bloc leader Oleksandr Vilkul with 4.15%, and Svoboda Party leader Ruslan Koshulynsky with 1.62%.
Other candidates had less than 1% of the vote. Some 1.18% of ballots cast were ruled invalid.
According to the law, the presidential elections in Ukraine are held in two rounds. If in the first round on March 31 one of the candidates gets more than 50% of the votes cast, he is declared the winner. Otherwise, a second vote is held (second round), in which two candidates, who have scored the most votes in the first round, take part.
