The next elections in Ukraine are due in 2024, but the law prohibits holding elections during martial law. Find out how many Ukrainians support the idea of holding elections during wartime and how citizens view Zelenskyy

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On August 23, in Kyiv, US Senator Lindsey Graham of the Republican Party said that next year's elections should be held in Ukraine even under martial law. According to the American politician, holding free and fair elections during martial law could demonstrate that Ukraine has changed in terms of corruption. 

And as it has recently become known, corruption in Ukraine is one of the main problems that the United States is concerned about. Moreover, there is much more concern in the West about it than is publicly acknowledged.

At the same time, Ukrainian law prohibits the holding of presidential and parliamentary elections during martial law. And the Ukrainian authorities publicly state that they have neither the technical nor the financial capacity to organize and hold elections.

How Ukrainian society perceives the idea of holding elections during wartime and how many Ukrainians currently trust Volodymyr Zelenskyy is discussed in the article below.

Elections in time of war: the opinion of Ukrainians

According to a survey conducted by the Razumkov Center sociological service on September 21-27, 2023, as part of the USAID/ENGAGE activity, 64% of Ukrainians have a negative attitude towards the idea of holding national elections before the end of the war in Ukraine, and only 15% of respondents said they had a positive attitude. At the same time, 21% of respondents have not decided on their answer.

According to sociologists, respondents justify the need to hold elections during the war with the following arguments:

– It is necessary to maintain democracy in the country (6% of respondents);

– Ukraine needs to demonstrate to the world that it is a democratic state (5%);

– the country needs to change the government (5%), or at least renew it, even if the same political forces remain in power as now (5%);

– the elections will help to promote a discussion in society about the existing problems in the country and ways to solve them (5%).

At the same time, Ukrainians justify their negative attitude to elections during the war by:

– lack of funds for their holding (36% of respondents);

– a ban on holding elections during martial law by Ukrainian legislation (32%);

– security problems, in particular the inability to guarantee the safety of voters (31%);

– inability to organize democratic elections according to the standards due to temporary restrictions on political rights and freedoms of citizens (29%);

– inability to organize voting in the temporarily occupied territories (26%);

– complications of voting for internally displaced persons and refugees abroad (24%);

– impossibility to organize voting for military personnel who are directly in the places of combat operations (22.5%).

In addition, 14% of respondents believe that online voting will not solve the problem of the legitimacy of the elections, as in this case, russian special services will be able to interfere in the process. Another 13% of respondents note that there is a danger of intensification of internal political conflicts and populist decisions in times of war. At the same time, 11% of Ukrainians say that the possible temporary lifting of martial law for the elections could negatively affect the country's security and defense capabilities, and 9% say that members of election commissions, official observers, and candidates for elected office may be mobilized.

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Trust in Volodymyr Zelenskyy: how many Ukrainians support the president?

Among the Ukrainians surveyed, 74.8% of respondents expressed confidence in Volodymyr Zelenskyy (37.8% of them said they fully trusted the president, and 37% rather trusted him). 18.6% of respondents do not trust Zelenskyy (5.9 percent do not trust him completely, 12.7 percent rather do not trust him). 10.8% of respondents said they found it difficult to answer this question, and 0.1% said they did not know such a person.

At the same time, the level of trust in the Armed Forces remains at the highest level - 93% of Ukrainians trust them. For comparison, in May 2023, 95.8% of Ukrainians trusted the Armed Forces.

In 2019, Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself stated that he would not run for a second term, but the war has made its own adjustments. Thus, during an interview with the Romanian TV channel Digi24, Zelensky said that he would run for a second term if the war continues.

"If the war continues, yes, if the war ends, no. I can't run away during the war," he said when asked if he would run for a second term if elections were held in 2024.

However, despite the active calls in the West for elections, the vast majority of analysts and experts emphasize that elections can be a disaster for the state, as elections and a full-scale war are incompatible.

We remind you! The unexpected attack by Hamas on Israel and the escalation of the conflict by Libya, Syria, Iran and Palestine made the world think about the approach of a global war. Read more about the mood in the international community and why the world fears that we are on the verge of World War III in our previous article.

Want to know more? Read the latest news and useful materials about Ukraine and the world in the News section.

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