By Lucas B.

On Sunday, Volodymyr Zelensky, a 41-year-old comedian, defeated incumbent President Petro Poroshenko in Ukraine’s Presidential Election.  Although Zelensky has no prior political experience, he won in a landslide, receiving 73 percent of the votes.

Poroshenko, devastated by his defeat, wrote on social media that he believed Russia would be pleased that Zelensky had been elected President.  “They believe that with a new inexperienced Ukrainian president, Ukraine could be quickly returned to Russia’s orbit of influence,” he said.

Zelensky announced his success on Sunday, saying that, “I’m not yet officially the president, but as a citizen of Ukraine, I can say to all countries in the post-Soviet Union look at us. Anything is possible!”  He expects to take office in May, becoming the leader of a country locked in a standoff with Russia.

However, according to Oleksiy Kondrashov, a public sector utilities worker, “Everyone was not voting for Zelensky, but against Poroshenko. If someone else had made it to the second round, people would have voted for them instead.” Poroshenko had lost a lot of supporters when many of his promises, such as getting rid of corruption, amounted to nothing.

In the television show “Servant of the People,” Zelensky played a history teacher that became President when his rant about government corruption went viral.  Despite this, Zelensky has little to no political experience, and many of his campaign promises were vague and short on details.

For example, Zelensky pledges to fight against political corruption and oligarchy, although he has yet to outline how he plans to do that. Regardless of his political inexperience, Zelensky promised during his victory speech on Sunday that he will not let his people down.