Presidential elections in Ukraine could be held as early as this summer, claims the weekly "The Economist". How could this happen, given the many unresolved issues related to security and voter lists?
Elections in Ukraine could be held as early as July, after the martial law is lifted, which Washington is aiming for and wants to achieve by April 20. This was reported by "The Economist" on March 30, citing its own sources. According to them, President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was elected to a five-year term in the summer of 2019, wants to run for a second term. He has instructed his team to organize elections after a possible comprehensive ceasefire.
No preparations for elections yet
Currently, there are no preparations for elections in Ukraine, announced the chairman of the parliamentary faction of the ruling Servant of the People party, David Arakhamia. Speaking to Ukrainian television, Suspilne, he said that all parties and factions in parliament agree that elections should be held six months after martial law is lifted.
At the end of February, the Ukrainian parliament adopted a declaration rejecting Russian President Vladimir Putin's claim that Zelensky is no longer the legitimate head of state. The document also says that presidential elections will be held "as soon as a comprehensive, just and sustainable peace is guaranteed." Both the United States and Russia have repeatedly called for elections in Ukraine. In February, US President Donald Trump even called Zelensky "a dictator without elections." However, elections are prohibited in Ukraine under martial law. What are the security risks? While many Ukrainians are accustomed to daily artillery fire, large campaign rallies, debates or meetings between candidates and voters would be extremely risky under current conditions. Therefore, Kiev is demanding security guarantees, a ceasefire not only temporary and not only on the front, but also guarantees that polling stations will not be subject to air or terrorist attacks.
Olha Aivasovskaya from the social network “Opora“, which in peacetime monitors the conduct of elections in Ukraine, warns that such attacks cannot be ruled out. “Given the attacks on military conscription points and sabotage against the railway, we should expect that Russia will do something similar with polling stations.
Can all voters be registered?
On the first day of the large-scale Russian invasion, the Central Election Commission of Ukraine blocked access to the voter lists in order to protect both them and citizens' data. At that time, about 34.7 million voters were registered. The authority only partially resumed work on the database in December 2023 and is currently mainly concerned with updating the addresses of polling stations, as in the course of decommunization and derussification, Ukraine renamed many settlements and streets. The damage caused by the war is also recorded: by 2024, 7,500 polling stations had been damaged by fighting in the territory controlled by Kiev alone.
Citizens are registered on the voter lists at their permanent place of residence. However, since the beginning of the Russian invasion in 2022, the number of internally displaced persons has increased many times - according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), in December 2024 they were more than 3.6 million. Many of them do not register at all or register late at their new place of residence. This means that voters' addresses are neither up-to-date nor reliable, warn experts from the Kiev think tank “Razumkov Center“.
What happens to Ukrainians abroad?
In addition to internally displaced persons, there are also Ukrainian refugees abroad - according to IOM data, there were about six million of them at the end of 2024. In order to participate in elections, they must register with a Ukrainian consulate. However, most of them do not do this, according to information from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kiev. But even for Ukrainian refugees registered abroad, voting would be very complicated. So far, polling stations have been set up mainly in consular offices - but they cannot accommodate tens of thousands of citizens in one day. Therefore, other premises will have to be rented, at least in the largest cities where Ukrainians currently live. It is unclear how Russia and Belarus will proceed, where, according to the UN, there were 1.3 million Ukrainians at the end of 2024.
According to a survey by “Razumkov“, about 47% of Ukrainians support the idea that refugees abroad should have the right to vote for the government of their country, while about 36% are against it. However, many Ukrainians abroad seem to be losing interest in the political life of their native country. Anton Khrushchevski from the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) told DW that only a third of a total of 801 refugees surveyed in Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic in May last year expressed a desire to vote in the next elections.
Voting via an app?
Some probably imagine that many of the logistical problems can be easily solved by remote voting - by mail, as is the case in Germany, for example, or electronically, as is possible with the Ukrainian app “Dia“, which is now used by over 21 million Ukrainians at home and abroad. In February, for example, it was used to select the Ukrainian song for this year's Eurovision Song Contest, but the system crashed. So this method cannot yet be considered reliable.
Electronic voting also requires reliable server protection and user verification. According to the authors of a study conducted by the Council of Europe at the end of 2024 on behalf of the Ukrainian parliament, no online voting platform can guarantee such reliable protection in wartime conditions. “Russia can influence the elections not only physically or through hacker attacks, but also with disinformation in the media and social networks“, emphasizes Olha Aivasovskaya.
The holding of elections does not depend only on Ukraine
Yaroslav Yurchyshyn from the parliamentary group “Golos“ (Voice), chairman of the Committee on Freedom of Speech in the Ukrainian parliament, agrees with her. Yurchyshyn also points out that the participants in the peace talks will most likely set a date for elections. In addition, Ukraine will have to coordinate the elections with its partners, as it simply does not have the money for this. “Many aspects of the future ceasefire, and therefore the elections, cannot be predicted today. However, there are obvious challenges and the parliament should reform the electoral law now to meet them“, the MP says. In other words, the preparation for the elections will take much longer than some now assume.