Daily Times

Three months after winning a landslide victory in Ukraine’s presidential election, former comedian Volodymyr Zelensky is hoping to consolidate his success in parliamentary polls on Sunday.

Voter surveys show Zelensky’s party Servant of the People — named after a sitcom in which he starred as president — is Ukraine’s most popular political movement. The 41-year-old actor with no previous political experience shocked Ukraine by becoming the country’s youngest ever post-Soviet leader in April.

“We will be able to create a normal parliament with real professionals,” Zelensky said in a video address on Tuesday.

Between 42 and 52 percent of Ukrainians who have already decided on their choice said they would support Zelensky’s party, polls show.

Zelensky has promoted himself as an anti-establishment candidate with no current or former lawmakers standing for his party.

Instead he invited ordinary Ukrainians to run, and more than 30 members of the public were eventually selected. The party that barely existed before Zelensky kicked off his presidential campaign on New Year’s Eve promises to crack down on “corruption, looting, bribery and hypocrites”. Zelensky’s rise has been viewed as a rejection of Ukraine’s political elite for failing to revive the economy, root out corruption and end the conflict with Russian-backed separatists that began in 2014 after a popular uprising ousted a pro-Moscow president.