US Republican Senator asks Zelensky for elections in Ukraine during the war

(Patria) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, responding to calls from a US senator to hold elections in 2024, said on Sunday that voting could take place during the war if partners share the costs, lawmakers approve, and everyone goes to the polls, Reuters reported.

Elections cannot currently be held in Ukraine under martial law, which must be extended every 90 days, the next expiring on November 15, after the normal October date for parliamentary elections, but before the presidential elections that would normally be held in March 2024.

Top US lawmakers visited Kyiv on August 23, including Senator Lindsey Graham, who praised Kyiv's fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin, but said the country needed to show it was different by holding elections during wartime.

Zelensky said in a television interview with Nataliia Moseichuk that he had discussed the issue with Graham, including the issue of funding and the need to change the law.

"I gave Lindsey a very simple answer very quickly," he said.

"He was very pleased with it. As long as our lawmakers are willing to do it," he added.

He said holding elections in peacetime cost $135 million.

"I don't know how much it costs during wartime," he said.

"So I told him that if the US and Europe provide financial support..."

He then added: "I will not take money from weapons and give it to elections. And that is
stipulated by law."

Zelensky said he told Graham that election observers would have to go to the trenches.

"I told him: you and I need to send observers to the front lines to have legitimate elections for us and for the whole world."

Ukraine would also need help in establishing additional polling stations for millions of people abroad, especially in the European Union, Zelensky said.

"There is a way out," he said. "I am ready for it."

Graham, a Republican, told reporters during a briefing in a bunker with fellow senators Richard Blumenthal and Elizabeth Warren, both Democrats, that his message to Zelensky would be that he would fight to keep the flow of weapons going "so you can win a war that we cannot afford to lose."

"But I will also tell him this: you need to do two things at once. We need elections in Ukraine next year. I want to see this country have free and fair elections even while under attack," he added.