Aivazovska: Fedorov, Zelenskyy did nothing to prepare elections in Ukraine
Ukraine may pay too high a price for holding elections during the war, while neither former Minister of Defense and Vice Prime Minister – Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov nor President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy did anything to prepare for them, noted Head of the Board of the Civil Network OPORA and member of the working group on preparing legislation for elections during wartime, Olha Aivazovska.
"Elections during the war will not be completely democratic, and we will pay a high price for this. But both the President thinks about them during the war and former Minister Fedorov. They have something in common," Aivazovska wrote on Facebook on Wednesday, commenting on Fedorov’s statement calling for finding a mechanism to hold elections under conditions of prolonged war.
According to her, both Zelenskyy and Fedorov "have a lot of vulnerabilities." "However, neither has done anything substantive regarding the preparation of the security system for the hardest and most important elections in Ukraine’s history," the OPORA head emphasized.
Aivazovska noted that Russian occupiers could use numerous scenarios to delegitimize the electoral process or completely halt the campaign. She also considers that since the first missed elections were parliamentary, the first post-war elections should also be parliamentary.
According to the head of OPORA, post-war election legislation is 65% ready, but the working group "stalled when the negotiation process stopped in April." She also reported that 50% of citizens currently do not live at their registered address (29% within Ukraine and 20% abroad), meaning the State Voter Register critically requires a creative approach to data verification.
In addition, holding elections requires sufficient time for public information and educational measures, revising the mandate of law enforcement agencies, conducting geopolitical work on organizing elections in overseas voting districts, developing a plan for transitioning power from military to civilian administration, completing the composition of the Central Election Commission, and mobilizing massive resources, Aivazovska noted.
As reported, on Tuesday Fedorov declared that Ukraine needs to find a legal, safe, and realistic mechanism to restore a full democratic process even under conditions of prolonged war.
"Democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia… We must find a legal, safe, and realistic mechanism that will allow Ukraine to restore a full democratic process even in conditions of a long war. It is difficult," he said in an address.
According to him, the duration of the war should not mean giving up on democratic processes, and Russia cannot be allowed to determine when Ukrainians can choose their government. He stressed that holding elections requires ensuring the voting rights of military personnel, millions of Ukrainians abroad, and people in frontline regions, as well as the security of the electoral process, institutional independence, and trust in the results. "Complexity does not mean impossibility. Ukraine has done many times what the world considered impossible. We can find a solution in this situation as well," Fedorov said.
Civil Network OPORA is a Ukrainian think tank with expertise at local, national, and international levels. OPORA positions itself equidistantly from political forces to ensure impartial observation.