Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that Ukrainian elections could happen in wartime if Kyiv receives funding from its Western backers and Ukraine’s legislators are willing to hold a vote.
Zelensky previously said elections can’t happen because they’re forbidden by Ukraine’s constitution during martial law, which was recently extended until November 15. Ukraine’s next parliamentary elections are scheduled for October 2023, and the next presidential election is due to be held in March 2024.
Martial law is expected to be extended into 2024 as there’s no sign the war will end anytime soon. Ukraine’s martial law prohibits men ages 18-60 from leaving the country. In March 2022, Zelensky used his martial law powers to ban 11 opposition parties and nationalize TV media.
Zelensky made the comments on Sunday in response to calls from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) for Ukraine to hold elections in 2024. The Ukrainian leader acknowledged that his country could lose some Western support for not holding elections as the war is being sold as a battle to uphold democracy.
“The logic is that if you are protecting democracy, then you have to think about this protection even during times of war. Elections are one of the protections. But there is a reason why elections are prohibited by law during wartime – it is very difficult to hold them,” he said, according to Ukrainska Pravda.
Zelensky said he told Graham when the hawkish senator visited Kyiv last week that Ukraine could hold elections if legislators agree to change the law, and the US and Europe foot the bill to pay for election observers on the frontlines and to provide voting access to millions of refugees living abroad.
Zelensky said elections in peacetime cost 5 billion hryvnia (US$135 million) and that he wasn’t sure how much it would be to hold them in wartime. The Ukrainian leader added that he would not use money meant for weapons to hold a vote. “I will not take money from weapons and give it to elections,” he added.
Even Biden and the Eurominions aren’t dumb enough to sponsor elections with the viable opposition parties banned. Are they?
Uh, yeah, Dissident, I truly believe they are…
Yes, they would be stupid enough if it helps Biden to get reelected. Their stupidity knows no limits if it serves them.
Hey, it’s only our (taxpayers) money.
Actually that’s the best time to sponsor. The US wants compliant parties. Opposition parties may not be so Western inclined.
Nah, that’s not how it’s done. Sponsoring elections without opposition parties looks bad and generates bad publicity. Our election manipulators prefer intervening in ways that appear fair and transparent while still ensuring desirable outcomes.
One possibility is to have one party with two names. After the election they simply compromise for bipartisan solutions, works all the time, Washington is proof.
You mean the guy who’s trying to send his own opponent to jail for 600 years wouldn’t agree to pay for the Nazi comedian to get re-elected?
No, that’s not what I mean.
Zelensky is a complete fraud. Why are our politicians this dim?
The CIA put this pathetic clown in power.
The same is most likely true for the NATO nations too.
It is all just too bizarre to be normal.
Two inexperienced one term female PMs in Finland and Sweden were long enough in office to make the two nations give up their neutrality to join a failing NATO, all without any real public debate, they simply rolled over the people.
Something stinks, no real critical voices in MSM either. US/NATO NEEDS PAYING MEMBERS.
The Cato think tank in June/July told the Biden crew not to admit Ukraine into NATO because it would not be an effective investment.
They’re women not female.
I used their title PM, what is wrong with female? Please, don’t make a mountain out of a mole hill. I am not a politician and I despise the gender campaign BS.
I personally have no issues with being regarded as “female”, Lysi. That’s what I am.
I’d have problems with being regarded as “male” 😉
I too am a biologic female and never had a problem with it.
The ones that can actually find Ukraine on a map are in on the grift.
To paraphrase Nixon, “he may be a fraud; but he’s our fraud …”
Because they and the press are bought and paid for by the corporate elite, that is true of all the USA/NATO GOVERNMENTS, with a few exceptions like Orban of Hungary.
That’s a good racket he’s got there.
Zelensky said elections in peacetime cost 5 billion hryvnia (US$135 million) and that he wasn’t sure how much it would be to hold them in wartime. The Ukrainian leader added that he would not use money meant for weapons to hold a vote. “I will not take money from weapons and give it to elections,” he added.
Easy fix. The US, the beacon of democracy, tells Volod that whatever it takes to hold the elections will be drawn from the next “aid” package and it’s either that or nothing. Then maybe this assclown won’t think the US is his personal ATM card. Of course, the real easy fix would be negotiations, but we can only dream about those happening.
Come on, Wars, don’t be so stingy. He had a nice thing going there for another few hundred million $ and you go and spoil the party.
But Biden is Zelensky’s personal ATM card – in spades.
I can’t imagine that ANYBODY believes Zelensky on this one.
And why not? They believe all the other BS!!
As if holding election in a corrupt country makes any difference…!
Or, somebody is tired and wants out…!
WTF! Now we’re expected to fund their freakin’ elections, too?
Well, better than funding Amerikkkan elections, I suppose.
The clown is smarter than the American voters are, granted he is better informed and knows how the game is played.
He made beaucoup $$$ and expects to make more.
He may be a dead man walking, but his wife knows how to spend it.
Got a nice mansion in South Florida. Got a nice villa in Italy. Money to burn in Costa Rica. Vogue shots with his wife. High fives Azov Battalion leaders. What a guy!
and the winner for leading male goes to…
The cocaine addict who can play a piano with his pecker …..
he does duets too………………………..such a marvel.
Surprisingly, Zelensky doesn’t seem to understand. Graham doesn’t mean elections; he means ‘elections’, playacting, just like here.
Zelensky does get it, he knows how to get his share from looting the NATO tax payers.
He may not live to enjoy it, but his wife can still spend money in Paris, if there is a Paris left.
Zelensky, the clown is not stupid when it is about money, he is doing to Biden what Biden is doing to him, he is milking Biden for money while he is being milked for more unending blood streams.
If it was up to me Ukraine would get NOTHING they voted for this war now they have it they don`t like so go round the world leaching of other countries to help them .
The people voted for peace, Zelensky run on a peace ticket, they never voted to join NATO. The Maidan demonstrators and snipers were paid for by the CIA.
The neo-Nazis and the Obama/Biden/Nuland people jumped in bed together. Nuland had more than just cookies for the demonstrators, the CIA had real $$$ bills for them.
Funded by the West? What isn’t?
There’s never been a grifter like him. Hasn’t he siphoned off enough millions of dollars?
Does he mean like when the Clinton’s funded and directed Yeltsin’s campaign in Russia? Is Zelensky looking for more side cash? How can there be free and fair elections with no opposition? And nothing but state media?
Yes and yes and yes ……
Who wants a free and fair election, Biden/Nuland maybe? You know you are funny,
Good one. Not in Ukraine. Opposition may want to end the carnage.
😉
Correct. He eliminated all opposition groups.
…but he said that he must “defend democracy”?
Ukrainian journalists protest army censorship of reporting on the counteroffensive
The National Union of Journalists of Ukraine has appealed to the Armed Forces of Ukraine over its severe restrictions on reporting in combat zones of the country’s stalled NATO-backed counteroffensive.The appeal comes in the wake of a report by French newspaper Le Temps that the Ukrainian government had effectively banned all foreign journalists from visiting the front unless they had received personal permission from the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valery Zaluzhnyi, a known admirer of the Ukrainian fascist Stepan Bandera. ..
Rather than “operational security,” the fact that the Zelensky government has cracked down further on its censorship of the front is further confirmation that Zelensky’s vaunted counteroffensive is “slow and bloody,” as the Wall Street Journal admitted earlier this week.Since the start of the counteroffensive in June, over 5,000 pieces of military equipment have been destroyed. It is estimated that at least 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed, and undoubtedly tens of thousands more Ukrainian soldiers are permanently disabled or disfigured…The increasing mass censorship of journalists has been noted even by publications that generally support the war and the relentless US propaganda of “unprovoked Russian aggression.”
As Luke Mogelsen, a contributing writer at the New Yorker, told the Intercept in June, “I’ve covered four wars, and I’ve never seen such a chasm between the drama and intensity and historic import of the reality of the conflict on the one hand, and the superficiality and meagerness of its documentation by the press on the other. It’s wild how little of what’s happening is being chronicled. And the main reason, though not the only one, is that the Ukrainian government has made it virtually impossible for journalists to do real front line reportage.”
The Zelensky government’s blatant attack on freedom of the press and its systematic undermining of any factual and honest reporting on the war not only exposes, yet again, the lie that the imperialist war waged against Russia in Ukraine is about “democracy.” It also underscores that nothing that is reported in the official pro-war media about what is happening in Ukraine can be taken at face value. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/08/28/cshk-a28.html
Since he’s banned opposition parties and a free press, just how would Ukraine hold elections, even if we did pony up the money????
And just for the record, his jailing of opponents and silencing of critics and critical media outlets began BEFORE Russia’s special military operation, so don’t blame it on that.
From Reuters, Dec 15, 2021, Months before hostilities started, “Ukraine’s government has restricted media and freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly, violating international law, the U.N. human rights office said on Wednesday
From EU Observer, July 20, 2021, “Zelensky’s Authoritarian Turn”
From KyivIndependent, January 12, 2022, “”How Zelensky’s administration moves to dismantle press freedom in Ukraine”
Ukraine under Zelensky is as much a democracy as Niger is.
Any funding we provide for “elections” will simply go into more of these corrupt stooge’s pockets.
Without a free press people will never know there was no election.
I’m sure Wash. will give him everything he wants. It’s the American Way.
Yes, we know how well the U.S. is able to ‘game’ elections. Zelensky could get 10% of the actual vote and the U.S. would make sure that Zelensky comes out on top. The U.S. has shown it’s ok to politicize the agencies to go after your opponents. In Ukraine’s case, Zelensky would probably have his opponents sent to the front lines
He will get all the votes, he eliminated any opposition a long time ago.
he waaants only money, but is not interested in democracy. ukraine’d never had democracy. actually ukraine is more corrupt than russia. fffff uuu ccc kkk you, zelenzombi!
Now he wants us to pay for his elections too? The little Nazi always has his begging bowl out.
He probably doesn’t even want pretend “elections” in the first place, but his US sponsors are under a certain amount of pressure from “democracy” activists for supporting a regime that has canceled its “elections.” So a show needs to be put on.
And even the most crooked Ukrainian election wouldn’t necessarily be noticeably more crooked than the typical US or Russian election. They’re pretty much just periodic TV soap operas with a touch of pro-wrestling theatrics.
So you can have a martial-law election, but only if someone else pays for it? Sold! Democracy goes to the highest bidder.