The issue of Ukraine’s next presidential election has emerged as a possible element in the peace deal between Russia and Ukraine that the United States is negotiating.
Ukrainian leaders and elections experts argue, however, that holding elections anytime soon would endanger lives and Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected in April 2019, and the next presidential election was scheduled for March or April 2024. However, martial law has been in effect since Russia invaded the country in February 2022, and Ukrainian law prohibits presidential elections when martial law is in effect.
U.S. President Donald Trump has lambasted Zelenskyy for not holding a presidential election.
In a Feb. 19 post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said of Zelenskyy, “He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden ‘like a fiddle.’ A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.”
Some members of the U.S. Congress and conservative commentators echoed Trump’s demand that Ukraine hold elections to prove its democratic credentials.
“Zelenskyy should hold elections. They are basically under martial law. That’s not good when you claim to be defending democracy. They need to practice it,” Republican Senator Josh Hawley told VOA.
Republican Representative Victoria Spartz told VOA that Ukraine should hold “transparent elections, and that not doing so allows Russia to say, ‘You have an illegitimate president signing these contracts and deals.’”
Russia has questioned the legitimacy of Ukraine’s president and government since 2014, well before Zelenskyy was elected to office.
During his televised question-and-answer event on Dec. 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested he couldn’t negotiate with Zelenskyy until his legitimacy is confirmed through elections.
“If someone goes to the elections, gains legitimacy there, we will talk with anyone, including Zelenskyy,” he said.
Zelenskyy said during a Feb. 23 press conference that he would step down as president if it meant “peace for Ukraine” but pushed back on the calls for holding elections.
“How can we call an election in which half of the country’s population won’t be able to vote?” he said. “How can we vote when today, [Ukraine was] attacked with 267 drones?”
His major political rivals, former President Petro Poroshenko, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, have also rejected the call for holding elections. According to a February poll, 63% of Ukrainians also reject it.
Many challenges
Ukrainian election experts say there are many challenges to holding free and fair elections under wartime conditions.
It would violate international principles of electoral law, according to Yevhenii Radchenko, a former deputy chair of the Central Election Commission of Ukraine.
“Elections must be universal, equal and free. During active hostilities, it is unrealistic to guarantee the safety of any of the participants, and due to massive Russian strikes, a significant part of the electoral infrastructure has been destroyed,” she said.
Radchenko, who joined Ukraine’s armed forces, texted VOA from the trenches at the Donetsk front.
On Feb. 27, OPORA, a leading Ukrainian nongovernmental organization involved in public oversight and advocacy in the field of elections, issued a statement signed by several other Ukrainian NGOs titled, “Statement of Ukrainian Non-Governmental Organizations on the Impossibility of Holding Democratic Elections without the Sustainable Peace.”
‘Armed forces or elections’
After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the Ukrainian parliament, as required by the country’s constitution, introduced martial law, which prohibits elections.
OPORA chairperson Olga Aivazovska said the purpose of martial law is to preserve the state and mobilize society for defense.
“We have to choose either the armed forces or elections,” she told VOA.
Aivazovska noted that Ukraine held elections between 2014 and 2022, when the conflict with Russia was ongoing in eastern Ukraine, but before Russia launched air raids on Ukrainian territory.
“Even if a ceasefire is established, there are no guarantees that Russia would not violate it as it did many times between 2014 and 2022,” she said. “It can carry out a massive shelling of the Ukrainian territory on election day. It can organize terrorist attacks at the polling stations, killing voters, election workers and observers, or at the minimum, disrupt the process.”
Aivazovska said it would be easy to contest an election as illegitimate if only 5% to 10% of the population votes.
“If Ukraine begins the election process without a guarantee of its completion, it means that we are simply giving this tool away to Russia for abuse and manipulation,” she said.
Radchenko said that about 14 million citizens — out of a population of 41 million — would not be able to vote, given that the war has dislocated millions of Ukrainians, and nearly a million Ukrainian men and women are serving in the armed forces.
According to Aivazovska, it is also unclear how people in areas occupied by Russia, “where people are subjected to torture, kidnapping and other crimes,” will be able to cast their vote freely, even after lifting martial law.
Most of the 7 million Ukrainian citizens who fled the war abroad will also not be able to vote, unless their host countries heavily invest in organizing the process.
“In 2004, the record number of Ukrainians living abroad voted at the polling stations in Ukrainian embassies and consulates — 103,000 citizens worldwide. There are simply no resources available to organize voting for 7 million people,” Aivazovska said.
Let Ukraine decide
Most of the members of the U.S. Congress interviewed by VOA said Ukraine should be free to decide when to hold its elections.
Republican Representative Brian Fitzpatrick said the United States and other democracies will encourage Ukraine to hold elections when it can do it safely and fairly, but not when “Ukrainians are still under invasion by an evil communist dictatorship.”
Democratic Representative Eugene Vindman, who was born in Kyiv in 1975, told VOA, “When 20% of the territory is occupied, when millions of Ukrainians are out of the country, it’s hard to imagine democratic elections representing the majority of the people being held.”
Vindman expressed confidence that Ukrainian society will hold elections as soon as it achieves a stable peace.
Republican Senator Kevin Cramer said the example of the United States holding elections during World War II is inapplicable because the U.S. didn’t have to fight on its territory.
Vindman noted that European countries also suspended elections for the duration of that war.
Democratic Representative Seth Magaziner suggested that a strong statement from Trump supporting Ukraine's defense against Russia’s invasion would make it easier for Ukrainians to “develop a timeline for elections.”
Republican Representative Don Bacon pointed out that Russia is in no position to demand elections from Ukraine. “They haven’t had free elections in 25 years. Putin’s murdered all his rivals. They've been thrown off the buildings. They’ve been poisoned. They’ve been killed in GULAGs,” he told VOA in an email.
Katya Andrusz, spokesperson for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, told VOA that at the request of Ukrainian authorities, her office has begun work to ensure that when all the prerequisites are in place, Ukraine can hold elections “in line with international standards and the commitments Ukraine has made as an OSCE country for holding democratic elections.”
“ODIHR is working with Ukraine in many areas, and we very much appreciate and respect the country’s democratic strength amidst all the ongoing challenges,” she said.
VOA’s Kateryna Lisunova contributed to this report.
