Kyiv
CNN
—
For days Trump cabinet officials have suggested Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky might need to step aside. Yet Ukrainian officials and analysts told CNN any change of president in Kyiv would spark at least six months of political limbo, and require an enduring ceasefire in the war before elections could be held that would conform to international standards.
There are three major hurdles to holding new elections, officials said. Only three quarters of Ukraine’s polling stations are operable at present and preparations to get elections to “international standards” would take six months, said the deputy head of Ukraine’s electoral commission, Serhiy Dubovyk.
Ukraine’s constitution also mandates, upon the president’s resignation, that the speaker of parliament takes his place until elections are complete.
Finally, Ukraine is currently under martial law, prohibiting elections until it is lifted, meaning a sustained ceasefire or peace would be needed.
Focus on Zelensky’s future has grown since US President Donald Trump’s closest advisers spent Sunday hinting he might no longer be the leader Ukraine needs. On Monday, Trump responded to Zelensky being quoted as saying an end to the war was “very, very far away” by suggesting America would not put up with such talk “for much longer.” Conversely, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Trump had no interest in removing the Ukrainian president.
Zelensky himself appeared to dismiss the idea of his resignation when he spoke to journalists Sunday in London, providing a riddle of how to remove him from power.
“It is not enough to simply hold elections,” he said. “You would have to prevent me from participating in the elections … You’ll have to negotiate with me,” he said, before suggesting, as he has done previously, that he would resign if Ukraine received NATO membership – something the Trump administration has repeatedly ruled out. He joked, with a little defiance, that NATO entering Ukraine would mean “that I have fulfilled my mission.”
The practical headaches of staging an election swiftly are manifold, said Dubovyk. “First, the legal aspect of ending martial law must happen,” he said.
“Secondly, there must be a preparatory process, because the country is at war, with systemic damage (and) only 75 percent of polling stations are ready for the elections, including on the occupied territories.”
He said “the six-month preparatory period confirmed by representatives of all factions of the (Ukrainian parliament, the) Verkhovna Rada is a reasonable timeframe.”
He added it could be “accelerated, but in this case, it is impossible to fully guarantee compliance with all international standards.”
Dubovyk and several other Ukrainian officials mentioned the logistical challenge of allowing the approximately 7 million Ukrainians living abroad as refugees the chance to vote, and the potential frontline crisis of having to allow the estimated million Ukrainians in the military the chance to both vote, and run in, the election.
The Kremlin has persistently referred to what it claims is the illegitimacy of Zelensky, falsely questioning his mandate in wartime, a talking point that crept into the White House’s statements last month.
Election advocates said this, and Russia’s history of electoral interference – such as when it sparked the vast pro-Western protests of the Orange Revolution in 2004 – made it only more important to ensure the vote met international standards.
“We need to reload all freedoms of movement and speech, and have a competitive electoral process,” said Olha Aivazovska, from the electoral reform group the Opora civil network.
She said elections in wartime were “impossible because it will be unconstitutional. Everything we have now because of the war, we have to change. It is about the reputation and legitimacy of the Ukrainian state as it is. Without legitimacy this state will not survive, because Russia will destroy our reputation and then we will be a failed state.”
