The political career of the Ukranian President: the “outsider” Volodymyr Zelensky

In April 2019 Ukraine faced the rise of a new political outcomer who won the presidential election with an overwhelming 73.2 percent of votes in a runoff against the incumbent President Petro Poroshenko. At those times Volodymyr Zelensky was a comic actor and studio head who portrayed a corruption-busting Ukrainian president in a popular televison show. The aim of the paper is twofold. On the one hand, it offers a description of the political rise of the “outsider” Zelensky in comparison with other outsiders in different countries in order to shed light on presidents’ pre – and post careers. On the other hand, by taking into account the institutional background, i.e. a mixed presidential-parliamentary system, it provides some evidence of the relationship between a specific presidential career and the quality of the regime type.