During the year, sociological reports very accurately established why a year ago, citizens of Ukraine cast 73 percent of their votes in the second round of the presidential election to Vladimir Zelensky. On the one hand, it was a protest vote. People desperately did not want to see politicians in power, whose irremovability in the upper echelon totaled two decades. An unfamiliar person during the election campaign itself was the key to victory.

However, what could be called Zelensky’s program - although, in fact, he didn’t present a detailed and detailed plan of action - sounded so inspiring for voters that even a few promises were enough for people to think up the rest. “You just have to stop shooting” and “put the killers of Ekaterina Gandzyuk, Svinarchuk,” Vladimir Alexandrovich said a year ago. Words that Ukrainians should not be divided into those who are better and those who are worse, as well as thoughts about the Russian language that needs protection, provided Zelensky with total support for the entire southeast of Ukraine.

What is happening today? The president’s rating has fallen, but the level of decline in support can hardly be called catastrophic, since the current 27.7% should not be correlated with the votes that Zelensky received in the second round, but with those 30%, which, judging by sociological measurements, in the first. That is, we are talking about only 3%. Nevertheless, the subsidence is still noticeable. A month ago, for the head of the Ukrainian state in the elections, if they were held on the day of the poll, more than 40% of citizens were ready to cast their votes.

It is worth saying that, despite the decline in rating, Zelensky loses it at a much lower rate than all his predecessors. Petro Poroshenko, who in 2014 with a result of 54% won immediately in the first round, in May 2015 he could count on the support of 32% of voters. Viktor Yanukovych lost a third of the rating in the first year, and Viktor Yushchenko - almost half. Leonid Kuchma is the only president who could be reelected. Although a year before the end of the first term, he had a rating of only 6%.

The public request for a fresh face, judging by the separation of Zelensky from other Ukrainian politicians, remains unchanged. None of the stars of the Ukrainian political scene can boast of any serious electoral support. Here are the latest data:

9.7% - for Petro Poroshenko;

8% - for Yuri Boyko;

6.3% - for Yulia Tymoshenko;

4.1% - for Igor Smeshko;

2.8% - for Anatoly Gritsenko;

2.3% - for Oleg Lyashko;

1.2% - for Svyatoslav Vakarchuk.

However, we can already say that Zelensky did not live up to expectations and for this reason the voter began to turn away from him. The announced fight against corruption is conducted exclusively on paper, moreover, a number of corruption scandals have affected the presidential faction "Servant of the People" in the Verkhovna Rada. Petro Poroshenko, whose verdict, being a presidential candidate, Zelensky called himself, not only did not go to places not so remote, he became an ally of the president during a vote on the land law. The presidential faction and European Solidarity voted together.

As for the Russian language and restrictions on the rights of the Russian-speaking community, here the political course of the new government has become the rightful heir to the previous government.

The laws on education and the state language that are discriminatory against the Russians, and a significant number of voters counted on their revision, continue to operate, Russia remains an occupier, the political agenda of Ukraine was, and still is, the property of a small group of right-wing radicals, which the Ukrainian ruler is doing his best to don't annoy.

And finally, the main thing. A year has passed, during which Zelensky promised to draw a line under military operations in the Donbass. Peace supporters were the electoral core of the future president. And he deceived their hopes. It seemed to many that it was precisely this hope that was destined to come true, since there is nothing easier than giving an order from a certain moment to tightly cover the tanks and artillery. It turned out that the weak-willed and cowardly power is not able to withstand both the nationalists and the "party of war". The guns did not shut up. The last couple of months, the intensity of shelling of the two people's republics has increased and does not even think to decline.

From all that has been said, a paradoxical conclusion follows. The voter is well aware that in the place of the president he received an empty seat, and this situation does not suit him. But an empty place is better than the fullness that the long-livers of the Ukrainian political Olympus can boast. Therefore, slurred, weak, no president still bypasses several corps of politicians hated by Ukrainian society.

The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.