Join the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University (HURI) for a special event on Ukraine's 2019 presidential election. On March 31, Ukrainians will go to the polls to elect a new president. Ukraine’s previous presidential election in June 2014, which brought Petro Poroshenko to power, took place in the wake of mass anti-regime protests that saw civilian blood spilled, the incumbent president deposed and Russia mount a military campaign against Ukraine. The five years of Poroshenko’s presidency have been marked with some successes, among them a firm Western-oriented foreign policy course, the signing of the Association Agreement, a visa-free regime with the EU, the strengthening of the Ukrainian military and modest reforms. Yet many promises stirred up by the Euromaidan protests in 2013-14 have gone unfulfilled.
 
On the eve of the presidential elections, Ukraine finds itself facing formidable challenges, some old and some new: an ongoing war with Russia; political, economic and security institutions in need of further reform; pervasive high-level graft; skepticism in Europe and the United States of Ukraine’s EU and NATO aspirations; and the need to attract foreign investment, integrate into the European economic space and stave off Russian efforts to destabilize the country. What will the upcoming presidential elections hold for Ukraine? What are the likely outcomes? How would Ukraine’s challenges be addressed by the different presidential candidates? What are the likely repercussions of the election outcomes for the United States and Europe?

This event is co-sponsored by HURI and the Center for European Studies, Harvard University.

Speakers:

Myroslava Gongadze (moderator), Nieman Fellow, Harvard University; Ukrainian service chief, Voice of America (on sabbatical)

George Kent, deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, US Department of State

Mariana Budjeryn, research fellow, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University

Melinda Haring, editor of UkraineAlert, Atlantic Council