From the early days of his foray into big politics, President Volodymyr Zelensky has promised to give the Ukrainian people power “through referendums and other forms of direct democracy.”
While the draft bill on referendums is awaiting a second reading in parliament, the president has announced that Ukraine will hold a nationwide poll on Oct. 25, the same day when Ukrainians will vote to elect local authorities.
In a televised address to the nation on Oct. 13, Zelensky said he wanted Ukrainians to answer five questions when they are at the polling station. So far only one question has been announced: “Should Ukraine introduce life imprisonment for large-scale corruption?”
The rest will be disclosed in the coming 11 days before the election. According to the president, they will be about “what people discuss on the streets, in their kitchens and on the internet.”
The presidential office insists that the poll is not a plebiscite, but a form of unmediated democracy that will give every Ukrainian citizen a chance to have a say in matters of strategic importance for Ukraine.
However, the idea of holding the poll on election day has raised questions about its legal validity, financing and true purpose.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of Zelensky’s administration, is reported to be the mastermind behind the nationwide poll. He did not respond to the Kyiv Post’s request for comment.
Dmytro Razumkov, speaker of the parliament, told journalists on Oct. 14 that funds have not been allocated from the state budget for holding the presidential poll.
Earlier in September, the parliament did not support draft bill 4043 that proposed granting the Central Election Commission the mandate to prepare and organize opinion polls during national or local elections.
Currently, any activity other than voting is prohibited at polling stations.
“Polling doesn’t contradict the Election Code as long as it is conducted outside of the voting premises,” said Olga Aivazovska, head of election watchdog Opora. “However, the law prohibits any campaigning on election day. That’s why the poll’s questions should not contain open or covert campaigning that could influence the results of the vote.”
According to a Kyiv Post source close to the administration, who was not authorized to speak with the press, the poll will be voluntary and will be conducted outside of the polling stations. Volunteers will hand out printouts with the questions, and respondents can deposit their answers into special boxes.
Other political parties have criticized the initiative, alleging that Zelensky could put controversial questions that could potentially jeopardize the national interests of Ukraine into the poll. But Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak and unofficial head of the presidential office’s communication policy, wrote on Facebook that the poll will not deal with contentious topics such a resuming water supply to Russian-occupied Crimea or granting special status to parts of the Donbas held by Kremlin-backed militants.
In a statement from Oct. 13, the President’s Office attempted to explain the idea behind the poll. It said that the administration wants to hear the people and not “agenda-driven television experts and politicians who manipulate public opinion in pursuit of their own interests.”
“The state is asking questions directly to the public and is receiving answers directly without mediators. This is how real democracy works,” the statement read.
At the same time, the office said that the poll will not have direct legal consequences.
Aivazovska believes that the true purpose of the poll is to divert attention from the real challenges for the local elections, mobilize Zelensky’s base and his party, Servant of the People, and possibly test questions that might be put to a future national plebiscite.
Still, the questions that are asked, the poll’s association with a political force and the discussion of it in the media could “have an influence on citizens,” Aivazovska said.
Political expert Volodymyr Fesenko says that the poll is a strategic move to “reprogram” the final stage of the local election campaign and make Zelensky the main newsmaker who sets the agenda for public discussion.
“It’s not about whether the poll has legal force. It’s about an appeal to public opinion,” Fesenko said. “If later the lawmakers won’t support some initiatives, Zelensky can appeal to the public opinion and say ‘I’m with the people.’”
Following the Oct. 14 announcement of the first question on whether Ukraine should introduce life imprisonment for large-scale corruption, the president’s office released a dramatic and vague statement. Despite all the efforts made by Zelensky and his party to ensure the effective function of Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies, the fight with corruption has been weak, it said.
Only the will of the people can change that, the statement continued.
“Every time when the president proposes that politicians intensify the state response to corruption, we receive different versions of a speculative ‘No’ in reply. Now we will ask the people of Ukraine,” it read.
However, Zelensky’s administration and associates themselves have lately been accused of blocking corruption charges against lawmakers and stalling anti-corruption reforms.
Despite promises to fight corruption, Zelensky has not yet managed to show better results than his predecessors: Not one high-profile state official or politician has been convicted of corruption.
Moreover, the parliament led by Zelensky’s majority has come under criticism for threatening to undermine the independence of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, which has raised concerns among the international backers of Ukraine. Additionally, the prosecutor general, appointed by the president, has been accused of derailing a corruption case against top judge Pavlo Vovk and bribery cases against two Servant of the People lawmakers.
Zelensky, a former television comedian without political experience, won the presidency with 73% of the vote in April 2019. He presented himself as one of the people in contrast to the old elites and establishment politicians who, he said, “didn’t ask anyone anything, promised a lot, and delivered nothing.”
He pledged to work differently, listen to the people and give them the power to influence official decisions through referendums.
At the start of his presidential campaign in January 2019, he asked Ukrainians to help him write his election program by sending him five issues in the country that concerned them the most.
After 1.5 years in office, Zelensky and his party remain the most popular political forces in Ukraine, but have seen their ratings slide as a result of the young president’s struggle to deliver on promises to fight corruption and end the war in the Donbas, as well as his loss of reformists’ support and rifts within his own team.
According to a September poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, 31.8% respondents said they would vote for Zelensky. His approval rating has fallen by 5.8 percentage points since June. Servant of the People’s rating fell by 6.5%, but it still tops the list of parties with 21.5% support.
Another September poll by Rating Group showed roughly the same numbers: 35% of respondents said they were satisfied with Zelensky’s performance, while 57% said they were unsatisfied.
