Click to copy

Zelenskiy wins Ukraine’s presidential election with 73%

April 23, 2019 GMT

1 of 2

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko bows during a meeting with supporters who have come to thank him for his work as a president, as his wife, Maryna, applauds, in Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, April 22, 2019. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

1 of 2

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Full preliminary results show TV comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy won Ukraine’s presidential election with 73% of the vote.

The Ukrainian Central Election Commission on Tuesday published the full and final count of votes in Sunday’s election which also showed incumbent Petro Poroshenko with only 24%.

Zelenskiy, 41, is a political novice who is promising to build a “new country,” free of graft and the old, corrupt political establishment.

Zelenskiy’s campaign was extremely vague, leaving pundits wondering how he is going to tackle thorny issues like the separatist movement in eastern Ukraine and relations with Russia which annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014.