Putin says Ukraine should hold presidential elections

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday (28) that Ukraine should hold a presidential election after the end of President Volodymyr Zelensky's five-year term.

Zelensky did not face elections despite the end of his term, due to the country's current conflict with Russia. The current president and his allies believe that the decision to postpone the elections would be the right thing to do in times of war.

Putin said the only legitimate authority in Ukraine now is parliament. For the Russian president, the head of the Ukrainian assembly who was supposed to lead the country.

Ukraine has no plans to hold presidential elections

The Ukrainian elections were supposed to take place on March 31st. Although it was the day the Constitution says Ukraine should vote, it also does not allow elections to be held in times of war.

The alternative would be to suspend martial law during the election period.

Zelensky himself has said he is open to the idea, but in recent months he has made it clear that it is not something he believes the country can or should do.

Opinion polls also suggest there is little appetite among Ukrainians to vote – just 15% of respondents told the Kiev International Institute of Sociology in February that the country should hold elections.

Oleksiy Koshel of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, a pressure group seeking to defend democratic rights, sees a clear political calculation at work.

Koshel believes that Zelensky's team initially wanted to hold elections because the president's support was so great. But when his support began to wane at the end of the year, the leadership cooled the idea.

Ruslan Stefanchuk, Speaker of Ukraine's Parliament, elected with the support of Zelensky's “Server of the People” party, articulates the government's position.

The Ukrainian politician told CNN , it would not be possible to guarantee that everyone eligible would be able to vote. He pointed to the 7 million people believed to have left Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion and to the several million who have been internally displaced.

More sensitive, perhaps, are people living in what Ukraine calls temporarily occupied territories. This represents about 20% of the country that is under Russian control.

Another group of people whose participation in elections would pose a challenge are those in the armed forces, especially those in frontline combat positions.

“It would be unfair to deprive soldiers who defend the independence of our country of the right to vote in elections at the cost of their lives and health,” said Stefanchuk.

With information from Reuters.