Comedian Ahead as Ukraine Presidential Campaign Enters Final Days

Kiev, Mar 28 (AFP) A comedian whose political experience is limited to playing the president in a TV show is likely to top the first round of voting when Ukrainians go to the polls on Sunday.

Actor Volodymyr Zelensky's bid started as a long shot but he has leapfrogged establishment politicians amid public frustration over corruption and stagnating living standards.

The 41-year-old star of political comedy "Servant of the People," which returns for its third season this week, is polling at around 28 percent, well ahead of his nearest rivals.

The main suspense ahead of the weekend vote is who of incumbent Petro Poroshenko and ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko will progress to the run-off, as several polls put them neck and neck with around 16 percent.

Zelensky, who has a young support base, confesses he has "no experience" but insists he has the strength to lead Ukraine -- a country of 45 million locked in a separatist conflict.

"I don't have all the knowledge but I'm learning this now," he told AFP in an interview this month.

"I don't want to look like an idiot."

Critics point to the vagueness of his manifesto, the key pledges of which were chosen following a public vote on social media.

But supporters say only a brand new face can clean up Ukraine's murky politics.

Some accuse him of acting as a front for the interests of oligarch Igor Kolomoysky, who owns the channel that broadcasts the entertainer's shows, though Zelensky denies any political links.

Poroshenko was elected president in 2014 after a popular uprising forced his Kremlin-backed predecessor Viktor Yanukovych from office earlier that year.

The pro-Western uprising was followed by Russia's annexation of Crimea and a conflict in the east of Ukraine between Kiev's forces and Moscow-backed separatists. Poroshenko came in on promises to tackle graft, align Ukraine with the West and shut down the fighting in the east.

He has brought in a raft of reforms to boost the economy and fight corruption, though they have yet to produce noticeable changes in living standards.

Meanwhile the simmering separatist conflict has cost some 13,000 lives.

He has however come through on a popular pledge to create an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church, free from the 300-year-old influence of the Moscow Patriarchate.

"My ally is the Ukrainian people... my opponent is Putin," Poroshenko said of the Russian president during a televised appearance ahead of the first-round vote.

The 53-year-old leader has positioned himself as the only person able to stand up to the Kremlin and has promised to return Crimea to Ukraine if he is re-elected.

The pledge has been widely dismissed as unrealistic.

Tymoshenko -- who was once known for her traditional plaited hairstyle but has in recent years opted for a more conventional pony tail -- has focused on the cost of living.

She has promised to cut consumer gas prices in half and boost pensions as she appeals to an older base during her third tilt at the presidency.

With a record 39 candidates on the ballot paper for the first round, analysts say the race remains open despite Zelensky's dominance in the polls.

"If you look at his figures, you get the feeling that (Zelensky) has already reached his electoral peak," said political analyst Mykola Davydyuk.

His younger supporters are also less likely to turn out on polling day, he added.

"The question isn't so much 'can he win?' as 'can he be president?'," Davydyuk told AFP.

"It's a big challenge for a country to have such a president." Barring a shock result in which one candidate crosses the 50 percent threshold in the first round, a two-person run-off will be held on April 21. (AFP)

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