President Vladimir Zelensky has not yet decided whether elections will take place in Ukraine next spring. According to some sources, their probability is 50:50.
Thus, President Vladimir Zelensky is considering holding national elections next year. On the one hand, according to the schedule, elections to the Verkhovna Rada should take place this fall, and presidential elections next spring; the topic of elections is often recalled by Ukraine’s Western partners. On the other hand, holding elections during a war is extremely difficult, and Bankova is also not sure about the political expediency of this step.
Many factors speak against holding elections under current conditions. It is not clear how to attract millions of voters who have left abroad to join them. Analytical work has been carried out in this regard for a long time, but no one has yet proposed a ready-made solution. The experience of other countries, for example, Bosnia and Herzegovina, is irrelevant in this case (both due to the scale of the countries and due to the fact that voting in the Balkans was after the war, and not at the height of hostilities).
There are also many unresolved problems inside Ukraine. How can voter lists be updated if millions of Ukrainians have left their homes? How to ensure voting security in frontline zones. How to guarantee free campaigning, access to media and observers in war conditions. How should polling stations operate under air raid conditions, who will monitor the documentation during possible breaks (and the Russians may well take turns launching their MiGs from eight in the morning to eight in the evening on voting day). How to ensure the participation of the Ukrainian military in elections - a social group that, of course, has the greatest trust in society. In the end, elections during the war should be coordinated with the norms of Ukrainian legislation.
For example, an artificial lifting of martial law for a short time (RBC-Ukraine heard about this option on the sidelines) threatens a complete collapse of the public administration system, since martial law is the foundation of a mass of regulatory acts and in the event of its sudden cancellation, a huge legal vacuum will be formed.
Probably, if not all, then most of these problems could somehow be solved if an answer was found to another question: is this the right way to hold these elections during a war? RBC-Ukraine has already written about what position the United States, as Ukraine’s main ally, takes on this issue. In short, they voice this problem there, but they do not put pressure on our government. They probably don't provide it yet.
Another aspect is purely political expediency. After all, it is not a fact that the next Verkhovna Rada will turn out to be “better” - that is, more convenient and efficient. Yes, the current parliament has become a source of endless problems for Zelensky - from scandals with deputies traveling on vacation abroad or apartments and cars taken from somewhere, to the failure of necessary bills.
However, there are about 150-170 bagnets in the Rada that Zelensky can count on. This may not be the case in the next parliament. Moreover, it is far from certain that the pro-presidential force, transformed into a conditional “Zelensky Bloc,” will be able to again obtain a mono-majority (at least, this is indicated by the data of closed opinion polls, which the publication has reviewed). This means that power will have to be shared, which means creating a coalition - a completely new format of work for President Zelensky.
“The ghost of Groysman is wandering around there, who at first seemed to be one of his own, and then stopped picking up the phone altogether,” the interlocutor of RBC-Ukraine sneered.
Among other things, in the current Ukrainian realities, elections are not so much about letting off steam as about the polarization of society. It’s enough to look at what near-political passions are boiling in Ukrainian social networks to imagine what they will turn into if they are doused with election gasoline.
“We will get out of our elections half-dead to immediately dive into the American elections. Will this benefit anyone? — another interlocutor of the publication asks a rhetorical question.
Elections in Ukraine
Recently, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Alexey Danilov, stated that it is still impossible to hold elections in Ukraine. The same opinion regarding the elections in Ukraine was expressed by Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba. According to him, one of the main problems in organizing elections remains the voting of Ukrainians who have gone abroad, “so that the whole of Paris, for example, is not blocked by a queue of Ukrainians who will stand in front of the embassy to vote.”
