By Rostyslav Averchuk
Lviv, Feb 3 (EFE).- The suggestion by the United States that Ukraine should hold elections already in 2025 finds little in the invaded country amid preoccupation with security, organizational challenges, and threats that a heightened political competition could pose to the national unity needed for the defense against Russia.
The US will ask Ukraine to hold presidential and parliamentary elections as part of the peace process, especially if a ceasefire is achieved soon, Donald Trump’s representative for Ukraine and Russia, Keit Kellogg, and other sources told Reuters over the weekend.
“If his plan is just a ceasefire and elections, it is a failed plan – Putin won’t be intimidated by just those two things,” Dmytro Lytvyn, communications advisor of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, reacted in X.
Kyiv would “prefer to see a more in-depth approach” and move quickly to “real work” between teams on a concrete plan to end the war, Lytvyn also said.
Elections not necessary
Elections don’t figure among the things that preoccupy Ukrainians most despite the allegations by Russia’s president Vladimir Putin that Zelenskyy (who won 73% of the popular vote in the 2019 elections) lacks legitimacy to be negotiated with.
“Even though Zelenskyy’s has fallen somewhat, most believe that elections should be held only after the war is over,” Anton Grushetski, director of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, told EFE.
According to the most recent survey by the “Rating” Sociological group, 60% of Ukrainians share this view. Even more, Ukrainians view Zelenskyy as legitimate, Grushetski underlined.
Holding elections under martial law is also prohibited by the Ukrainian Constitution, which cannot be changed during the war either.
A threat to unity and legitimacy
Many of those who want elections to be held are ers of Petro Poroshenko, who lost to Zelenskyy in 2019.
However, Poroshenko has soundly denied the need for holding elections, noting that Ukraine must win the war first. Elections could “kill unity” and would be exploited by Russia, Ukraine’s fifth president noted.
“Elections are always a struggle. And there can be no unity during elections. Any democracy knows this,” he noted in reaction to Kellogg’s remarks that “most democratic nations have elections in their time of war.”
Only the Russian president would benefit from this, Poroshenko underlined, noting that Putin is already carrying out an intricate disinformation campaign in Ukraine and will seek to destabilize it if elections are held.
Former or serving military leaders are likely to become Zelenskyy’s main opponents in case of elections, opinion polls show, risking to create splits between the army and political leadership at a critical moment for the country.
According to Andriy Magera, a former member of Ukraine’s Central Election Commission, rather than increasing the legitimacy of Ukraine’s leadership, elections would undermine it if held during the war.
It would be impossible to ensure that all citizens can form and express their political views in the current situation, he underlined on Facebook.
Millions of Ukrainians are currently abroad and would not return to the country, attacked daily by Russian drones and missiles unless their safety is ensured. Millions live in the occupied territory or remain displaced inside the country, while up to a million are in the army.
A distracting idea
The idea that Ukraine should hold elections as part of the peace process only complicates it by implying that it is Ukraine and not Russia, which needs to do more, Olesya Yakhno, a well-known politologist, wrote.
As soon as there are grounds to lift martial law and hold elections, Ukrainians will be the first to raise such a need because they have always understood the importance of renewing their politicians, she underlined.
During Vladimir Putin’s quarter-century stay in the Kremlin, Ukraine saw three presidents change in fair elections, Ukraine’s minister of foreign affairs Andriy Sybiha underlined.
“If anyone’s legitimacy is called into question, it is that of Moscow’s dictator, who creates cannon fodder from men in their twenties (who were) born while he was already in power,” he wrote on X. EFE
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