Poll Predicts Comedian Zelensky Will Win Ukraine Vote

W460

A new poll released Thursday predicted comedian Volodymyr Zelensky would win the second round of Ukraine's presidential election scheduled for April 21. 

Zelensky's only political experience is limited to playing the president in a television show. 

Released by the Kiev-based agency Rating, the survey found 61 percent of Ukrainians would vote for Zelensky next week. It found only 24 percent would back President Petro Poroshenko.   

Around 15 percent of Ukrainians were undecided. 

Zelensky won more than 30 percent of the first-round vote, while Poroshenko took almost 16 percent.

He has challenged Poroshenko to a public debate in the country's biggest sports stadium. 

The 41-year-old has starred in the political comedy "Servant of the People" and confesses to having "no experience." 

But he insists he can lead Ukraine -- a country mired in a war with Moscow-backed separatists in its industrial east that has claimed 13,000 lives. 

Poroshenko was elected president in 2014 after a popular uprising forced his Kremlin-backed predecessor Viktor Yanukovych from office earlier that year.

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