Partners No Longer Demand: Korniyenko Explained the Stage of the Postwar Elections Bill

He stressed that any discussions about holding them are “theorizing,” since there is no concrete plan as of today.

First Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada and head of the working group on preparing legislation about the specifics of conducting elections under martial law, Oleksandr Kornienko, said that international partners have long stopped demanding this from Ukraine. In an LB interview, he noted that the bill on the first postwar elections, despite this, technically has a high level of readiness.

But there are also problems related to political issues, which is why, evidently, it has not yet been registered in the Rada. But until Kyiv achieves “peace at least for a certain period,” these problems cannot be resolved — a political discussion about them was planned for the autumn, but due to the security situation it had to be postponed.

“Over time, we in Kyiv will learn to live with all this, start using underground halls and capacities more quickly, but also start intercepting drones more effectively. And then maybe later in the autumn we’ll return to these discussions more deeply,” Kornienko said.

Any conversations about elections are “theorizing,” said the first vice speaker of the Verkhovna Rada and explained that it is not yet clear when exactly voting will take place and which elections — presidential, parliamentary, or local — will occur first.

He added that it is possible that when the country does reach this process, part of its territory will still be under occupation, where elections will be impossible: “But a large portion will also be in the front-line so-called zone. And it’s a big question whether democracy can be restored there quickly.”

As a reminder, at the end of August the media reported that Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov, the head of the Servant of the People faction David Arakhamia, the new minister for veterans affairs Vitaliy Kim, and the head of the Verkhovna Rada Financial Committee Danilo Hetmanets could form a new political force that would be a separate project, not the president Volodymyr Zelensky’s party. The potential union, whose formation depends on the end of the war, will be a “proto-party.”