Volodymyr Zelensky, from a television star to the president of Ukraine, after a landslide victory in 2019
Now, he is ready to face an even bigger electoral challenge: testing his presidency in the polls for the first time since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago.
Amid growing pressure from Western backers, Ukrainian authorities are quietly preparing the ground for new elections, votes that will test the strength of support for Zelensky and whether war-weary Ukrainians want new leadership.
Officials have denied that they are working in this direction, citing long-standing arguments that the state of war, which was declared shortly after Russian forces began their invasion of Ukraine in 2022, prevents elections from being held.
“We are not preparing to hold elections because elections in wartime are impossible to hold according to the Constitution, current laws and common sense, due to security challenges,” Dmytro Lytvyn, a spokesman for the Presidential Office, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Ukrainian Service.
But officials have actually begun planning the details and examining various aspects, starting with the printing of ballots, security at polling stations, and how the millions of Ukrainian refugees living abroad can vote.
“I see that in recent months there have been real preparations for the elections,” said Oleksiy Koshel, head of the non-governmental organization, the Committee of Voters of Ukraine. “We see a lot of signs of activity at the election headquarters, advertisements that are quietly circulating, millions of special information leaflets about party leaders that are being distributed.”
The campaign “has de facto already begun,” Koshel said.
Olena Davlikanova, a Kiev-based researcher at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington, said there are many signals that political parties are preparing for new elections. But she said the elections cannot be held unless Russia agrees to a ceasefire.
“Many of us don’t believe that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will keep his word,” Davlikanova told REL. “Without a ceasefire, it is impossible to hold elections in Ukraine.”
Servant of the People
First as part of a beloved comedy troupe, and then as a fictional high school teacher catapulted to the presidency in the television series, Servant of the People, Zelensky scored a landslide victory in 2019, defeating then-president Petro Poroshenko in the election.
Ukrainians were drawn to him because he was a new face on the political scene, a person accustomed to the media, and his promises to normalize relations with Putin and Russia in general. However, less than three years after taking office, Putin ordered the deployment of more than 100.000 troops to Ukraine, starting the largest ground war in Europe since World War II.
Ukrainians continued to support Zelensky’s leadership, even though Kiev’s troops have suffered defeat after defeat over the past year.
Russian troops are advancing slowly on several fronts. A counteroffensive in 2023 failed. Military commanders and political leaders are squabbling over how to boost recruitment and fill the ranks. The country’s top military officer has been dismissed, as has the defense minister.
Ukrainian presidents are elected to five-year terms; Zelensky was due to run for re-election in 2024. But government officials insist that a new election is legally impossible under the state of emergency, not to mention logistical obstacles.
That has opened the door to criticism from abroad. Putin, who has questioned the very existence of the Ukrainian state, has accused Zelensky of being an illegitimate president for failing to hold elections. Last week, he suggested that the entire country should be placed under a United Nations-backed interim government.
“Nobody cares at all what Putin says because Ukrainian laws are very clear: all power is legitimate until the state of war is lifted and elections can be organized normally,” Davlikanova said. “Therefore, Putin can go, you know where.”
“Putin has offered the UN oversight over Ukraine,” she said. “We are saying we are offering the UN oversight over Moscow because they have not had free and fair elections since 1996.”
But there has also been criticism from the United States, the largest supplier of weapons to the Ukrainian military.
Shortly before the public clash in the Oval Office in February, US President Donald Trump – who has had a tense relationship with Zelensky since his first term in the White House – called Zelensky “a dictator without an election.”
Foreign criticism has bolstered Zelensky’s standing among Ukrainians. A poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology showed that trust in Zelensky has doubled in recent weeks. Shortly after the Oval Office meeting, the Ukrainian parliament passed a resolution supporting Zelensky, saying new elections would be held only after “a comprehensive, just and sustainable peace” is in place.
For Zelensky’s supporters, this would push for a decision to hold elections as soon as possible, in order to eliminate any opponents from the race: first and foremost, Valery Zaluzhniy, the former army commander who is now Kiev’s ambassador to London.
Zaluzhniy was removed from the leadership of the army by Zelensky after he openly questioned the government’s decisions through a letter in November 2023.
Since taking up his position in London, Zaluzhniy has said nothing publicly about a run-off with Zelensky in the election. However, he has consistently come out on top or near the top in public opinion polls.
Other prominent public figures have also said they are considering challenging Zelensky if the election goes ahead. In February, Poroshenko, the businessman who Zelensky defeated in the election, attracted attention when he traveled to the United States to meet with US administration officials.
Speaking at a conference, Poroshenko said Zelensky should have worked on a national coalition. “Instead, we have a strange preparation for elections,” he said.
“According to the information I have, the decision has been made to organize and hold presidential elections as soon as possible after the cessation of hostilities,” Oleksiy Honcharenko, an opposition lawmaker, told REL.
Logistical obstacles
If a U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement were to be respected, election law requires at least 60 days for candidates to campaign. If the campaign were to start on April 20, as the Finnish president has proposed to Trump, that would mean the election could be held in early July.
But the logistical details of organizing the election are massive. Millions of Ukrainians are refugees in foreign countries, and getting them to vote poses a major challenge. Also challenging is getting soldiers on the front lines to cast their ballots.
“Now, there seems to be a consensus in society and among politicians that a longer period of time is needed to prepare for elections after the end of the state of war than that stipulated by law,” said Oleh Didenko, chairman of the Central Election Commission, in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda.
While Ukrainians have welcomed American weapons, voters are wary about the sustainability of U.S. support in the future, Davlikanova said.
“Whatever the Americans are doing, whoever they are talking to, the Ukrainian people understand,” she said.
“Therefore, we understand that we will rely on ourselves,” she added./RFE
