• Welcome to the new Internet Infidels Discussion Board, formerly Talk Freethought.

Ukraine election: What would a comic president mean?

Copernicus

Copernicus

Industrial Grade Linguist
Joined
May 27, 2017
Messages
5,564
Location
Bellevue, WA
Basic Beliefs
Atheist humanist
The top vote winner in the first round of Ukrainian presidential elections was political novice Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Ironically, Zelenskiy is best known for his portrayal of political novice history teacher who wins election by accident in a TV Comedy series ("Servant of the People" or "Слуга Народа"). In the comedy series, a student surreptitiously records him blowing up over corruption and politics in a private conversation. It goes viral on social media after the student posts it. Then his students crowdfund 2 million hrvinias (over $73K) to enter him as a presidential candidate, which he accidentally wins. The running joke is then how everyone starts sucking up to him as power brokers try to figure out what happened.

Petro Poroshenko is the current president, but he only got 16% of the vote. Zelenskiy was the front runner with 30%. Those two will face each other in a runoff election. See Ukraine election: What would a comic president mean?.

Zelenskiy's TV show started in 2015, but it is now available on Netflix in the US. You can also see it for free on Youtube. Just be sure to turn on the English subtitles, if you don't understand Russian. It is worth watching at least the first episode:

[YOUTUBE]GZ-3YwVQV0M&t=451s[/YOUTUBE]
 
Well, there's nothing about being a comedian that stops you from being an intelligent person who has a decent plan to help out your country. Unless you're a prop comedian, of course, because after the eighth or ninth cabinet meeting where everybody needs to keep pretending not to notice the whoopy cushions on their chairs and then force out laughter when someone sits on them, productivity and morale are going to start suffering.
 
Tom Sawyer said:
Well, there's nothing about being a comedian that stops you from being an intelligent person who has a decent plan to help out your country. Unless you're a prop comedian, of course, because after the eighth or ninth cabinet meeting where everybody needs to keep pretending not to notice the whoopy cushions on their chairs and then force out laughter when someone sits on them, productivity and morale are going to start suffering.
Click to expand...

Some comedians make excellent public servants. Al Franken certainly was until he was brought down by sexual innuendo. The problem with electing celebrities like Zelenskiy is that they tend to have little or no experience at actually making government function. They are amateurs who have little understanding of the duties and requirements of public office. People tend to be cynical about politicians, thinking that anyone in office just has to be corrupt. This is especially true in Eastern Europe, which has a history of domination by autocratic rulers. The first episode in "Servant of the People" have autocrats wondering which one of their numbers had actually managed to get Vasyl Petrovych Holoborodko (played by Volodymyr Zelenskiy) elected. And Holoborodko is immediately love-bombed by people offering and seeking favors. He has no clear politics, so he doesn't know how to answer questions about what he plans to do.

The sad truth is that the real life Volodymyr Zelenskiy is a bit like the clueless political naif that he plays in the TV series. His country has been invaded by a neighboring country, but all he offers is a vague promise to stop the shooting in Eastern Ukraine. How? By just doing what the invaders want? He may have learned some things about holding office from his TV comedy, but he hasn't actually had to negotiate deals with politicians before. So, like any political neophyte in a powerful public office, he will have to rely on others to show him the ropes and tell him what to do. Meanwhile, the public that elected him will expect him to behave honestly, intelligently, and independently. As usual, the voters are even more naive than the neophyte, and they confuse inexperience with independence from corrupt influences.
 
At least he is a professional clown, unlike Poroshenko who is amateur.
As for negotiating deals with Putin, he can't be worse than Poroshenko because Putin does not even answer his phone calls after that last stunt.

In any case, he has not won yet,
 
barbos said:
At least he is a professional clown, unlike Poroshenko who is amateur.
As for negotiating deals with Putin, he can't be worse than Poroshenko because Putin does not even answer his phone calls after that last stunt.

In any case, he has not won yet,
Click to expand...

It is hard to say whether he can gain the extra number of votes to beat Poroshenko.

Did they put his show on TV in Russia? If so, have you seen it?
 
barbos said:
Copernicus said:
Did they put his show on TV in Russia? If so, have you seen it?
Click to expand...
Don't know, I don't watch russian/ukrainian shows especially such shows.
Click to expand...

Why not? Is the electricity grid down again? It's probably the fault of those damn Western imperialists but is definitely not in any way due to Putin and his buddies siphoning countless billions of dollars out of the public coffers into their own bank accounts.
 
Tom Sawyer said:
barbos said:
Copernicus said:
Did they put his show on TV in Russia? If so, have you seen it?
Click to expand...
Don't know, I don't watch russian/ukrainian shows especially such shows.
Click to expand...

Why not? Is the electricity grid down again? It's probably the fault of those damn Western imperialists but is definitely not in any way due to Putin and his buddies siphoning countless billions of dollars out of the public coffers into their own bank accounts.
Click to expand...

I prefer american TV shows. SciFi, sitcoms, Simpsons and Kimmel/Colbert/etc. Russian TV just suck, bad script, bad actors, bad propaganda, bad everything.
 
barbos said:
...
I prefer american TV shows. SciFi, sitcoms, Simpsons and Kimmel/Colbert/etc. Russian TV just suck, bad script, bad actors, bad propaganda, bad everything.
Click to expand...

I do tend to prefer those shows made in Ukraine over Russia. Generally speaking, there is better acting and less propaganda. However, I did enjoy the "Silver Spoon" (Мажор) cop show, much to my surprise. The acting was not as bad. I'm trying to enjoy Фарца, given the fact that it is about black marketeers in the early 1960s. I first visited the SU in 1965, and we were followed by black marketeers everywhere. However, the show is full of anachronisms and depicts Soviet life as a kind of Westernized version of 1960s Russia. That is, it makes Russia look much more like 1960s America than 1960s US. There is almost no Communist Party presence in it, including an almost complete lack of Communist propaganda in signs and posters that was almost everywhere at the time.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Spoon_(Russian_TV_series)
LOL, Netflix bought it. I have never even heard about it. Even if it's good I still don't like that genre. To be fair I have never watched Soprano, Breaking Bad or Game of thrones. I might try Breaking Bad some time.

Anyway, it's no secret that Zelenskiy campaign is backed by oliugarch Kolomoisky who has a grudge against Poroshenko because he nationalized his bank. Kolomoisky was also betting on Timoshenko.
 
If polling in Ukraine is accurate, Zelensky now looks like the sure favorite. He has called for a dialogue with Russia, but he claims he wants the occupied territories returned. (I don't see Russia ever giving Crimea back.) Beyond that, I think that Ukrainian supporters are expecting the TV character but will get the actor. This is similar to what Trump supporters expected and got in 2016.

For the latest perspective, see:

 
Mr Poroshenko accepted defeat, saying, "I am leaving office, but I want to firmly underline that I am not leaving politics", even before the official release of the results of the two-man run-off.
Click to expand...

spurce

So Ukraine elected a comedian as president. A sign of the times, the US have a joke as one too.
 
Trump is often characterized as a reality talk show host, but I still consider him a somewhat talented right wing stand-up comedian. He gets a lot of chuckles from his supporters when he attacks minorities, women, journalists, and liberals.
 
Tigers! said:
The comic just elected probably will do no worse that his predecessors.
Click to expand...

I tend to be more suspicious of inexperienced politicians, because their lack of familiarity with their office and the issues tends to make them more susceptible to manipulation by others. We have seen this kind of thing at work with Donald Trump, who seems to be oblivious to just about every past policy and practice that ever affected his job. So he takes direction from talking heads on Fox News.

In Zelensky's case, he will likely make appointments and back policies that his oligarch patron favors, including an effort to fix his legal problems. As for foreign relations, my guess is that he will be more easily manipulated or outmaneuvered by Putin than Poroshenko was. I suspect that Zelensky's halo will become tarnished in fairly short order, as the knives come out for him. They made much of how he was able to battle venal politicians and the entrenched oligarchy in his TV series, but those acting roles probably didn't prepare him much for dealing with real government crises.
 
As far as we can tell Zelensky is not a criminal and not retarded, so stop comparing Zelensky to Trump.
 
barbos said:
As far as we can tell Zelensky is not a criminal and not retarded, so stop comparing Zelensky to Trump.
Click to expand...

Anyone can be compared to Trump. There are always differences. Zelensky, at least, has an education, and he has given more thought to what it means to be a national leader than Trump has. So I am actually more optimistic about him than Donald Trump. Still, there are obvious similarities. One of them is a total lack of political experience. It is delusional to vote for someone like that and expect the candidate to somehow manage to work the levers of government to make campaign promises come true. It is certainly possible, but it isn't reasonable to expect that. Worse yet is to vote for someone who can't articulate a coherent roadmap for achieving results while in office. We need experienced leaders in order to get results.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom