One of the newest claims that I’ve seen going around the internet involves Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the upcoming elections in Ukraine. There are quite a few claims on the internet that Zelenskyy is canceling elections and fretting that this isn’t what Democracy looks like. Ironically, the complaints are mostly from people that supported Donald Trump’s 2021 insurrection and coup attempt, but they have a point. If Zelenskyy was really acting unilaterally to suspend elections, that would be problematic.
I was curious if the claims were true so I searched for confirmation. Initially, I became more skeptical because the only outlets I could find that corroborated the claim were Russian propaganda outlets like Tass and RT as well as the Hindustan Times from India. I didn’t consider any of these to be credible so I was prepared to call the myth busted.
Then I stumbled onto a video clip tweeted by Jane Adams, a House candidate from Las Vegas who is not to be confused with Jane Addams, the Nobel Prize-winning social worker of the early 1900s. Candidate Adams posted a video of President Zelenskyy in a BBC interview responding to the question of whether there will be elections in Ukraine next year.
“This is a global question,” Zelenskyy replies. “If we win, there will be. So there will be no wartime martial law. Elections should be held in peacetime according to the law, and that’s why this is so.”
Even though the video is labeled as a BBC link and apparently came from a BBC interview with Zelenskyy, I could not find a matching clip on the BBC site. It could be from a recent BBC interview that is not yet available on the website, but the perspective between the two images is different even though the background and Zelenskyy’s clothes seem to be the same. An article based on the new interview does not mention elections. Still, I don’t doubt that we see Zelenskyy, but since he is not speaking English, we are at the mercy of the translators.
Let’s start with a little background on Ukrainian elections. The president of Ukraine is elected to a five-year term, Zelenskyy was elected in 2019. Therefore, he would be expected to face re-election on the last Sunday of March 2024. (Legislative elections are in October.)
In the video, Zelenskyy notes that “election should be held in peacetime according to the law.” This is so.
Under the Ukrainian constitution, if the term of the Verkhovna Rada, the parliament, expires while there is martial law or a state of emergency, “its powers are extended until the day when the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine elected after the cancellation of the state of martial law or emergency convenes its first meeting of the first session.”
There is general agreement that Ukrainian law prohibits all elections while martial law is in place. This is not only true under the current government. The previous president, Petro Poroshenko, declared martial law in 2018 in the wake of the Sea of Azov incident between Ukraine and Russia. There was concern that this would impact elections in 2019, but ultimately the duration of martial law was brief enough that elections were unaffected.
This does not mean that Ukrainian democracy is in danger, however. To prevent abuse, the constitution also prohibits enacting constitutional amendments under martial law or in times of emergency powers.
In fact, thinking about the situation logically and historically, it seems more likely that a would-be dictator would declare martial law under false pretenses to hold on to power by canceling elections and stifling opposition parties. Coming from a period of dictatorship and Russian oppression, the Ukrainian constitution contains several countermeasures against strongmen seizing power including allowing the parliament to impeach a president for “state treason or other crime.”
So Zelenskyy is not ruling out elections, he’s saying that if the country is under martial law, as it has been since February 24, 2022, which is not coincidentally the day that Russia invaded, the law does not permit elections. That may not be the best way to handle the issue, but it is the method that is enshrined in Ukrainian law. And remember that the Ukrainian constitution cannot be amended to allow elections under martial law while the country is under martial law.
The prohibition does make sense. It would be difficult to hold elections with large parts of the country in Russian hands and the rest of it subject to Russian air and missile attacks. If such elections were held, would they be free, fair, and accurate? Could observers, either international or domestic, verify that elections were not fraudulent under such conditions? Could candidates even campaign effectively?
The Council of Europe has published a study on the issue which examines Ukrainian law and discusses the timetable of when elections can be held following the suspension of hostilities and the end of martial law. After the war, the Western democracies will undoubtedly push for speedy elections.
Some of the anti-Zelenskyy activists also point out that the Ukrainian president has also banned some political parties and combined national television channels into one platform. They usually fail to point out that this happened in March 2022 when Ukraine’s survival was still very much in doubt. They also fail to note that the channels and parties that were banned were pro-Russian. This action seems at least understandable if not totally justified under the circumstances of the existential threat of a Russian invasion.
Finally, I want to call something to your attention about Jane Adams’s link. In the video she posts, the voiceover at the beginning and end of the clip is clearly not the voice of a BBC anchor. It sounds to me like the narration is in Russian (maybe one of my readers can verify this). If that’s so, I wonder why an American congressional candidate is posting a video from a Russian source. (Although I really don’t have to wonder very hard.)
In the end, we don’t know whether Ukraine will hold elections next year. Maybe the war will be over by then. After last weekend’s thunder run by Yevgeny Prigozhin exposed Putin’s weakness, we can hope. Failing that, maybe the situation will be stable enough that Zelenskyy will suspend martial law in unoccupied and uncontested areas.
If people are truly concerned about Ukrainian democracy, the best way to preserve it is to pressure Russia to end the war. Without the Russian invasion, occupation, and continuing attacks there would be no rationale for continuing martial law. But as long as Russia threatens Ukraine’s existence, martial law will be needed.
A cogent and clear analysis and explanation. I learned a lot. The Ukrainian constitution seems to address this matter quite concretely and practically- to be honest I’m impressed.Report
Thanks for this quick, direct summary. I’ve really been enjoying your work here, David.
Not a reflection on David, because like him, I don’t have to wonder very hard about that either. And as an American citizen who insists that despite our many flaws and failings and fallings-short we still have much to be proud of as a nation and as a people, the rather obvious explanation for why a member of Congress is getting her news from a Russian source is a reason that causes me to experience no small amount of shame.Report
I’m old enough to remember when paying attention to non-American news sources was the only intellectually-honest thing to do. But I guess we’re done with that now.Report
There are plenty of non-American news sources that you can still pay attention to that also aren’t Russian propaganda. Back in the day Pravda (as but one examples) was as much “news” and OAN is now. Which is to say almost none. This would seem to be a reversion back to that.Report
If you’ve got some Le Monde, Bild, Nikkei, or El Pais articles for me, I’m all ears. But yes, the news from the nation controlled by a corrupt oligarch and his buddies is not going to be a news source I support.Report
While not holding elections under martial law is certainly constitutional according to Ukrainian law, it does give me pause. It seems very ripe for abuse. If Ukraine wants to be part of NATO, this seems like something that ought to be addressed.
This country managed to hold a fiercely contested one in the midst of a civil war.Report
Eh, not really. The northern half of the country had elections. The Confederate troops had spent a month 20 miles north of the border once, but otherwise there wasn’t a war in the north. And the southern states obviously weren’t voting. By analogy, in logistical terms and not anything moral or geopolitical, this would be like Russian elections held today.Report
You’re right that Jane Adams is a “Congressional candidate”.
She’s running in Clark County District 1, which has been Democrat since it was created forty years ago. The closest it’s ever come to being Republican was in 2022, where the Democrat incumbent won by a five-percentage-point margin.
One of the things that people who yell about Those Rotten Republicans really enjoy doing is pointing out how this-or-that example of liberal perfidy is “just nutpicking” and “not representative”. And, well. We’re supposed to look at someone drawing to an outside straight and figure this is Just Run-Of-The-Mill Republican?Report
It’s”Democratic” when used as an adjective. But you knew that.
And if you’ve ever played poker, you know that it is drawing to an inside straight that’s hard.Report
My guy, I know what I am talking about and I said it on purpose.Report
Of course you did. And the rest of us can draw the obvious conclusions.
Though we might be willing to have you sit in on a poker game.Report
There is no debate if Zelenskyy said it. He did. It’s been widely reported by western media. Even Snopes said it was true.
Justified or not, right now, the country is not a democracy, no matter how you want to spin it.
The issue then becomes how many years will martial law be in effect. And how many years before the Ukrainian people demand an election. Frankly, this could easily become a decade long stalemate with Russia refusing to relinquish occupied territories and the west unable to move them by force or diplomacy.Report
Was the UK not a democracy because Churchill didn’t have any elections until after WWII was over?
Look, I get the argument the pro-Russian right wants to have – “these are two non-democracies, so why are we spending money there, when we could be spending money on homeless vets with kittens and rainbows” or whatever, but historically, most nations getting invaded don’t have elections.Report
I think that’s especially the case if they also want to rake Biden over the coals for Afghanistan, a democracy we spent over 2 trillion dollars on yet was so flawed and corrupt it collapsed with barely a shot fired in its own defense.Report
Biden deserves to be raked over the coals for the disastrous exit, not the failure of trying to install a democracy there. That was always doomed to fail and there is a laundry list of people to blame for those 20 years flushed down the toilet.Report
The Right may want to have that argument, but until mid-February of last year Ukraine was a mostly functional democracy, in as much as we define such things.Report
Technically during the war it wasn’t. But the UK did have a long (and bloody) history that forged its form of democracy before elections were suspended. And even then, the govt had the capacity to change leadership, as it did in 1940.
Ukraine has only held elections for 30 years. It’s a fledgling democracy. It bears watching. Especially since we know how governments everywhere hate to relinquish emergency powers.
You don’t have to be pro-Russian (I’m not) to see this becoming a protracted conflict where we can go a very long time before Ukraine ever holds another election.Especially, iIf Russian retreat of all Ukrainian territory is the only thing that will allow martial law to be dropped and elections to occur.Report