Ukrainian analyst: Poroshenko uses May 9 for campaigning

During the events connected with May 8 and 9, the current president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko will be playing a pre-election campaign strategy of counteracting a candidate that is convenient for him, the director of the Agency for Social Communications Sergey Belashko has said a news conference in Kiev.

“Most probably, Petro Poroshenko will continue the trend of drawing attention from May 9 to May 8 used last year, although polls have shown this is not welcome in the public. But taking into account Poroshenko’s positioning as the leader of the ‘patriotic and pro-government’ forces, he will continue working for mobilization of his electorate, so he won’t be trying to position himself as a president of all Ukrainians, he will be mobilizing his supporters instead,” PolitNavigator quotes the expert as saying.

According to Belashko, Poroshenko is only fifth today in the rating, so he is facing a serious challenge of going to the run-off.

“Probably, they will play the card of a convenient candidate that will be taken to the run-off. Probably, Lyashko or Boyko will be such candidate. May 8 and 9 will show: if Boyko is chosen as a sparring partner, it will be one strategy, all the TV channels will cover events with Boyko’s participation. Poroshenko will participate in other events that will be covered by all TV channels as well, and the public will start acquiring a binary picture where there will be no place for Yulia Tymoshenko who is now leading the ratings,” Belashko said.