Presidential elections were held in Ukraine on 31 March 2019. As none of the 39 candidates on the ballot received an absolute majority of the initial vote, a runoff was held on 21 April between the top two vote-getters: Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a television personality, and Petro Poroshenko, the incumbent president. The Central Election Commission (CEC) announced that Zelenskyy won the second round with 73.22% of the total vote (or 74.96% of the valid vote). The elections were recognized as free and fair by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
Poroshenko became the third incumbent Ukrainian president to directly lose reelection, after Viktor Yushchenko in 2010 and Leonid Kravchuk in 1994 (only Leonid Kuchma has ever won reelection, in 1999). Zelenskyy was sworn in as the sixth President of Ukraine in May 2019.
Background According to Ukrainian law, the election of the President of Ukraine must take place on the last Sunday of March of the fifth year of the term of the incumbent president which in this cycle fell on 31 March 2019. The Ukrainian parliament had to approve the date of the presidential election no later than 100 days before the election day which it did on 26 November 2018.
Candidates According to Ukrainian law, a presidential candidate must be a citizen of Ukraine who is at least 35 years old, can speak the (state) Ukrainian language and has lived in Ukraine for the last ten years prior to election day. Candidates were nominated by a political party, or by self-nomination. Candidates also had to submit a declaration of income for the year preceding the election year. This document was then scrutinized by the National Agency for Prevention of Corruption, which subsequently published the results of the audit. Nominations could be submitted from 31 December 2018 to 4 February 2019. The end of the registration period was 9 February 2019. After a potential candidate provided the required documentation to the CEC, this body had five days to register the candidate or to refuse to do so.
Candidates were required to pay a nomination deposit of ₴2.5 million (approx. US$90,000); only the two candidates that progressed to the second round of voting would get this deposit back (the other deposits would be transferred to the state treasury).
By the end of the registration period on 9 February 2019, the CEC had registered 44 candidates for the elections. This meant that the largest number of candidates participated in the elections. In total, 92 people submitted documents to the CEC to participate in the elections. Five candidates withdrew. The CEC refused to register 47 people, most for their failure to pay the deposit. The CEC refused to register nearly fifty presidential candidates , Ukrainska Pravda (8 February 2019)
Candidates could withdraw their candidacy, but not later than 23 days before the election. On 8 March, the CEC approved the final list of candidates. There were a total of 39 candidates for the first round of the election.Thirty-nine candidates to run for president in Ukraine - CEC , Interfax-Ukraine (8 March 2019)
Registered candidates