Entrepreneur Petro Poroshenko, who has won an outright victory in Ukraine’s presidential election, was the only oligarch to have supported the pro-European opposition from the start.

    BILLIONAIRE Petro Poroshenko declared victory Tuesday after he won Ukraine’s presidential election.

    Poroshenko, a candy tycoon known as the “Chocolate King,” is also a seasoned politician known for his pro-European Union views.

    At a news conference in Kiev, he reiterated that European integration would be his priority. He added that the president and the whole of Ukraine had changed.

    He’s a billionaire thanks to the candy company he started nearly 20 years ago.

    Poroshenko, 48, isn’t Ukraine’s wealthiest man; his US$1.3 billion fortune makes him seventh, according to Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s billionaires.

    But his wealth includes experience as well as money. He’s a former foreign minister and former chairman of Ukraine’s national security and defense council, and now a member of parliament focusing on European integration.

    Despite the victory, Poroshenko actually inherited a tough job.

    His country has been wracked by months of violence, with Moscow laying claim to Crimea and separatists declaring independence in several eastern regions of the country bordering Russia.

    That’s the very reason Poroshenko says it’s so important to have a new presidential now.

    “We need a legitimate, strong, powerful commander-in-chief of our armed forces. We need a legitimate president who can open dialogue, direct dialogue with all our partners,” Poroshenko said ahead of a campaign rally in Donetsk city about a two-hour drive north of the capital Kiev, in central Ukraine.

    The unrest has centered in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where separatists have claimed independence after a disputed referendum this month.

    More violence was reported overnight as authorities suspended flights at Donetsk airport after separatist gunmen stormed the terminal building, airport spokesman Dmitriy Kosinov said Monday. Ukraine military forces moved in by air and on the ground and gunbattles broke out.

    Increasing violence in the east has led the authorities in Kiev to accuse Russia, which they say is backing the armed separatists, of seeking to disrupt the vote. Russia denies having direct influence over the militants, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he will respect Ukrainians’ choice in the election.

    A shrewd politician who has flip-flopped between governments for more than a decade, Poroshenko was the only Ukrainian oligarch to openly back the pro-European protest movement that ousted president Viktor Yanukovych, under whom he served as economics minister.

    He has boldly proclaimed he is the man to save the day as the country struggles with the loss of Crimea, an armed pro-Russian insurgency in the east and threatened economic collapse.

    “Soon we will end the war. Soon we will stamp out corruption. Soon we will begin European integration and establish democracy,” he said.

    He was the only politician to fly to Crimea in a bid to negotiate with pro-Russian troops who seized parliament after Yanukovych fell, but he was angrily chased off by demonstrators.

    He said he was ready to talk with Putin but said two issues were not negotiable — Ukraine’s pro-Europe direction and Crimea, which he insisted “is and will remain Ukrainian.”

    Having held several Cabinet portfolios and built strong links across the business community, many see him as an experienced and capable pair of hands to stem an economy in freefall and unite the country.

    Analysts say he is more palatable to the electorate than controversy-dogged Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister who was jailed for abuse of power by the ousted regime, and other less experienced politicians.

    Unlike most of Ukraine’s influence-wielding oligarchs who made a killing swallowing up state assets in the chaotic years that followed the Soviet Union’s fall, Poroshenko’s wealth is self-made.

    Poroshenko was born in September 1965, he owns Ukraine’s largest confectionery manufacturer, Roshen.

    He started out selling cocoa beans and bought up several confectionary plants, which he later united into Eastern European candy giant Roshen, which produces 450,000 tons of sweets a year, according to its website.

    Poroshenko’s fortune has, however ,taken a hit from the current political crisis and the bitter standoff with Russia, a key market.

    One of the first difficulties came last year. As Ukraine neared the signing of an EU pact fervently supported by Poroshenko, Russia banned chocolate imports from his Roshen factory.

    Poroshenko owns 5 Kanal TV, the most popular news channel in Ukraine, which showed clear pro-opposition sympathies during the months of political crisis in Kiev.

    Many argue that the presidency itself is a poisoned chalice. Since Ukraine won independence in 1991, all four holders of the office have either left office in disgrace or have endured a major loss of popularity — whether they have been pro-Russian or pro-European.

    Ukrainian media interpreted the groundswell of support for Poroshenko as a reaction to the opposition’s dithering and inability to find common ground during and after the anti-government protests that toppled Yanukovych.

    Poroshenko secured the support of opposition leader and former boxer Vitaly Klitschko as well as fellow tycoon Dmitry Firtash, who has long been on cordial terms with Russia.

    Poroshenko comes from the mainly Russian-speaking Odessa region in southern Ukraine, although his political stronghold is believed to be in the central Vinnytsya region, where he started his business and political career.

    He kicked off his presidential campaign in Vinnytsya with a rally there in March 2014.

    The main slogan of Poroshenko’s election campaign was: “A new way of living.”

    He portrays himself as a pragmatic politician who sees Ukraine’s future in Europe, but hopes to mend relations with Russia, using the diplomatic skills he developed as Ukrainian foreign minister.

    He has pledged to implement local governance reform, grant more powers to the regions, facilitate economic reforms, and improve the investment climate.

    Poroshenko has been elected to parliament several times and has worked with both the pro-European and pro-Russian political camps in Ukraine.

    He was foreign minister in Tymoshenko’s government from 2009 to 2010, and briefly an economic development and trade minister in 2012.

    He was one of the founders of Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, in 2001. However, later that year he left to lead Viktor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine electoral bloc.

    He was also one of the main figures of the Orange Revolution that brought Yushchenko and Tymoshenko to power in 2004.

    Yushchenko is a godfather to Poroshenko’s children.

    (SD-Agencies)