This, then, is a rebellious popular vote against corrupt politics-as-usual by people who are largely non-political. In this sense, there’s a certain resonance with the Gilets Jaunes movement – and like their French counterparts, Zelensky voters do not have any political unity or ideological coherence. Their basic common denominator is negation. The demands and expectations of Zelensky voters are heterogeneous and even contradictory, ranging from putting an end to the war and oligarchy to increasing wages, lowering prices and household gas tariffs. But in the best traditions of 1968, they are demanding the “impossible” – just social conditions that are equal for all. And 73% means a clear refusal of any kind of negotiations or possible compromise with the current ruling class so that it could remain in power. [...]
While Zelensky voters may vary widely in their claims about what they voted for, they found common ground in what they voted against. First of all, they voted against the war. And this is not a blind denial of the reality of warfare and occupation – this vote was against the war as a political and economic system of relations between the state and the society that has emerged in Ukraine during the recent years. Russian military intervention and occupation has poisoned the atmosphere inside Ukraine, creating the conditions for political reaction in the form of bans on certain social media platforms, attacks on anti-corruption NGOs, the beating and killing of activists, racist pogroms and so on. [...]
Zelensky isn’t a right-winger or even a conservative, but rather a libertarian in a very broad sense, while right-wing populism is exactly what Ukraine has experienced under Poroshenko’s rule at its purest. Throughout most of his presidency, Poroshenko has addressed the Ukrainian public predominantly in a discourse of narrow-minded ethnic nationalism borrowed from Ukraine’s far-right Svoboda party. He ended up campaigning for president with the medieval slogan “Army! Language! Faith!” – in reference to laws protecting the Ukrainan language, military reforms and the creation of an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In recent years, various extreme right and neo-Nazi organisations have been legitimised in the public sphere as “activists” and “freedom fighters”, receiving the informal backing of the security services and law enforcement. They have remained unpunished for their committed hate crimes.
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