Zelenskyy will run for office if elections are held during war: "I won't abandon Ukraine"

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will run for president again if wartime elections are held in 2024, even though he only wanted to stay in office for one term.

Source: Zelenskyy in an interview for Portuguese public TV channel RTP, cited by BBC News Ukraine

Quote: "If the war is still going on in 2024, and if elections are held, I will never in my life abandon my state. Because I am a guarantor of the Constitution, and I will protect it under any circumstances."

Details: In the runup to the 2019 elections, Zelenskyy made a campaign pledge that he would only run for office for one term and would not seek office a second time, although two years ago, in 2021, he was preparing for elections.

Zelenskyy recently noted that the 2024 elections would require legal changes, considerable financial assistance from Ukraine’s partners, and international observers in the trenches.

In his interview for RTP, Zelenskyy specified some preconditions for holding the elections. He repeated that the elections will have to be financed by Ukraine’s Western partners, and that the issue of safety in Ukraine and voting options for refugees must be considered as well.

Quote: "If there are elections, then they must be conducted in Ukrainian territory so that soldiers at the contact line have the opportunity to vote, so we will need observers from all over the world. I want everything to be done in accordance with the law, transparently and democratically, as it was during the elections when I became president, when everyone said, [these are] transparent elections. I don’t want to lose that…

We do not have the right to lose people who went abroad as refugees. They must have the infrastructure to cast their votes.

Russia also brings up the topic of elections. We must rule out the threat of bombing; of course there will be bombing, but we must guarantee safety for people at polling stations."

For reference: Under the Ukrainian Constitution, parliamentary elections in Ukraine should have been held in autumn 2023 and presidential elections are due in March 2024, but Ukrainian law and the Constitution ban elections during martial law.

Western representatives are insisting that Ukraine hold elections at the due time, despite the war.

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