Ukraine is “ready for elections”, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said, after US President Donald Trump repeated claims Kyiv was “using war” to avoid holding them.
Zelensky’s five-year term as president was due to end in May 2024, but elections have been suspended in Ukraine since martial law was declared after Russia’s invasion.
Speaking to reporters following Trump’s comments in a wide-raging Politico interview, Zelensky said he would ask for proposals to be drawn up which could change the law.
Elections could be held in the next 60 to 90 days if security for the vote was guaranteed with the help of the US and other allies, he said.
“I’m asking now, and I’m stating this openly, for the US to help me, perhaps together with our European colleagues, to ensure security for the elections,” he told reporters.
“The issue of elections in Ukraine, I believe, depends first and foremost on our people, and this is a question for the people of Ukraine, not the people of other countries. With all due respect to our partners,” Zelensky said.
“I’ve heard hints that we’re clinging to power, or that I personally am clinging to the presidency” and “that’s why the war isn’t ending”, which he called “frankly, a completely unreasonable narrative”.
Zelensky won election in 2019 with more than 73% of the vote.
Russia has consistently claimed Zelensky is an illegitimate leader and demanded new elections as a condition of a ceasefire deal – a talking point which has been repeated by Trump.
“They talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy anymore,” the US president told Politico.
There are significant practical obstacles to a wartime election.
Soldiers serving on the front lines could be either unable to vote or require leave to do so. According to the UN, there are about 5.7 million Ukrainians living abroad because of the conflict. And any ballot would require complex, additional security measures.
Such a vote would only be fair if all Ukrainians could participate, including soldiers fighting on the front line, a Ukrainian opposition MP told the BBC.
Lesia Vasylenko of Golos also told the BBC World Service’s Newsday programme that “elections are never possible in wartime”, alluding to the suspension of elections in the UK during World War Two.
Oleksiy Goncharenko, an opposition MP from the European Solidarity party, said: “I am completely against the idea, I can’t even understand why Zelensky would say it.”
“It is completely impossible. Elections are not just putting a tick in on a piece of paper – it is debates, it is a campaign, an entire process. Maybe Zelensky sees it as an opportunity to hold quasi-elections that will be favourable to him, while he controls the media and his opponents are likely not ready.”
Discussions around holding elections have made headlines since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
There is little domestic political pressure on Zelensky to call elections while the conflict is ongoing, said Oleksandr Merezhko, the chairman of the foreign policy committee in Ukraine’s parliament.
There was “strong consensus” among politicians and civil organisations that elections would not be held under martial law, the MP from the Servant of the People – Zelensky’s party – told the BBC.
“Even the opposition, which is against Zelensky and would like to see him removed are against elections, because they understand the danger of attempting to hold elections during the war,” he said.
The idea was “exactly what Putin would want”, Merezhko added. “An election campaign would be divisive. Having failed to destroy us from outside, Putin wants to destroy us from within, using elections as another tool to do so.”
A poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in March found about 78% of people opposed holding elections after a ceasefire with security guarantees, and were of the opinion that they could only be held after a complete settlement.
The share fell to 63% in a September poll, while 22% said elections could be held after a ceasefire with security guarantees – a jump from 9% in March.
“Even a year ago, Zelensky said that he was ready for elections as soon as the conditions allow” in the face of previous pressure, Hanna Shelest, a foreign policy analyst with the think tank Ukrainian Prism, told the BBC.
The question was, however, how to create the conditions Zelensky outlined, Shelest told the Newsroom programme on the BBC World Service, given soldiers and refugees who would be voting as well as unsecured areas in the country and ongoing strikes.
“You cannot guarantee the security of the polling stations,” she said.
Zelensky is also facing continued and increasing pressure from Trump to agree to a peace deal to end the war, with the US leader urging Zelensky to “play ball” by ceding territory to Moscow.
He has suggested without evidence that Zelensky is the main obstacle to peace as US-led efforts to broker a deal continue.
The Kremlin said Trump’s “very important” statements on Ukraine, including saying Moscow would win the war and that Kyiv would need to hand over land, fall in line with Russia’s view.
“In many ways, on the subject of Nato membership, on the subject of territories, on the subjects of how Ukraine is losing land, it is in tune with our understanding,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Map of eastern Ukrainian territories under Russian occupation
Putin has repeatedly indicated he is not prepared to compromise over his claim to all of the Donbas – made up of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Russia currently occupies most, but not all of this territory.
In the Politico interview, Trump also criticised European leaders as “weak” and suggested the US could scale back support for Ukraine.
The Ukrainian president is on an ongoing diplomatic tour of Europe following intensive talks between US and Ukrainian negotiators over the weekend which failed to produce a deal to which Kyiv could agree.
He has pressed European and Nato leaders to help deter the US from backing a deal that Kyiv fears would leave it exposed to future attacks and has ruled out surrendering land.
SOURCE: BBC NEWS
