“Now is not the time to organize elections“. Word of Volodymyr Zelenskywho expresses himself thus in his evening video message responding to the rumors about the probable holding of the presidential elections in March 2024. According to the president “now Ukrainians should think about protecting the state and “not disintegrate” in political controversies. “This is the time for defense, for battle, on which the fate of the state and the people depends and is not the time for elections,” Zelensky added.
The mandate of the Ukrainian president, elected in 2019, would expire in 2024. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, however, Kiev has enacted martial law, which among its effects includes the suspension of elections. A few days ago, however, it was revealed that Zelensky same “weighing the pros and cons” of the organization of presidential elections in 2024despite the war and the numerous “practical challenges“. “It’s not that I don’t want to hold elections, but holding them in the current circumstances would require unprecedented work and would require facing unprecedented challenges,” the Foreign Minister explained. Dmytro Kouleba.
At the beginning of September Zelensky had already said he was “ready” to organize elections in his wartime country “if the people needed it”. “It’s not one question of democracy” but “only security”, he assured, also underlining that there are “many” problems to be solved. Among these, the vote of soldiers fighting in the trenches, or the arrival of international observers in a war zone, she explained. A list to which Kouleba also added the organization of the vote for millions of Ukrainians abroad and the risk that polling stations in Ukraine could become “perfect targets for missiles and Russian drones“. Zelensky will therefore remain in office at least until the end of the war.