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Comment by egberts1 | Hacker News Reader

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How do you intend to conduct an election during an active war when 20% of the country, over 3 million Ukrainians, are under Russian occupation? Do they just not get to vote?

Easy, you suspend the constitution.

He’s in year 6 of his 5 year term.

American journalist Gonzalo Lira killed while imprisoned by Zelensky. He made the mistake of being critical of Zelensky.

Declared martial law Feb 2022 and has banned elections since then, suspending Ukraine's constitution.

Starting in 2022, he's banned 12 political parties so far and used his "Department of Justice" to seize many of their assets.

He's also banned TV channels associated with his political opponents.

Banned a Christian Church.

Passed a law in 2022 to censor journalists and combined all news into 1 gov’t station.

Journalists investigating his corruption get conscripted and thrown on the front lines to die.

Who knew that the old WWII adage of being threaten to being "sent to the Eastern Front" to die is still a thing to this very day. If that doesn't speaks volumes of the Soviet^H^H^H^H^HHRussian, I don't know what else is.

Sadly, US Rep. Chuck Schumer (D-CA) calls Zelensky "the leader of the free world".

Plenty of countries have held elections during war, including war in their country. The US (civil war), Iraq and Afghanistan during the US occupation, Japan (WW2), etc.

I know it can be a challenge, but it has been done.

Why does it have to be done? I haven't read the Constitution, but if what the other poster says is true about it saying that elections cannot be held during war, then isn't that the end of it?

The Ukrainian constitution does not allow elections during war, but that is not what I was responding to. The post I was replying to was asking how an election could be held during a war. I was just pointing out that it has been done in the 1800s, 1900s, and 2000s.

My question wasn't rhetorical, I wasn't doubting that it was possible. I am genuinely asking how OP believes these elections should be conducted. We've got over 3 million Ukrainians living under Russian occupation, I don't see a way to feasibly give them a vote. 6 million Ukrainians are refugees living in other countries. You could try some sort of remote voting for them, but there would be logistical difficulties. That might be possible for the national voting, but what about local election? Would they vote for candidates in their last known address? Or just not get a vote on that? 8 million are refugees living within Ukraine. Same question for them about local elections.

My point is that, ironically, insisting on elections now, DEPENDING ON HOW IT IS IMPLEMENTED, may actually not be the most democratic thing to do. So before I take can take a position on the matter, I would need to know the implementation details.

Isn't the first question how to amend the Constitution though? If the Constitution says elections cannot be held, that's the end of it until it's amended to say otherwise. How would anyone elected under unconstitutional elections have any authority whatsoever?

What, no. I guess he would rather do something else than be a wartime president.

trump should call putin a dictator, because.. he obviously is, but for some reason he chose to attack Zelensky instead.

How can there be elections when there are millions of people displaced, there are large parts of the country occupied and huge part of the population is on the front defending the country.

This "dictator" stuff is just straight russian propaganda, that americans have been swallowing up because someone told trump it was true.

> But curious, is Zelensky using the pretense of war to stay in power?

See this from just a week ago: "Zelenskyy offers to resign in exchange for peace, NATO entry"

https://www.politico.eu/article/volodymyr-zelenskyy-offer-re...

It is a challenge to conduct an election during war.

Never forget:

1) Zelensky sat quietly while Democrats tried to impeach Trump the first time. Zelensky alone could have put an end to that sham impeachment.

2) Zelensky actively campaign against Donald Trump for the Democrats.

3) One of Zelinsky’s radicalized zealots tried to kill Donald Trump.

Then Zelensky reneges on the mineral deal because it doesn’t continue the money laundering proxy war the Democrats and RINO war whores started.

At some point, people might wake up and realize Zelensky is not a good guy.

Maybe.

> 1) Zelensky sat quietly while Democrats tried to impeach Trump the first time. Zelensky alone could have put an end to that sham impeachment.

Trump didn't deny the conduct, and it was proven during impeachment. His defense wasn't that he didn't do it, it was that he had the right to do it. Zelensky couldn't have cleared anything up because the facts were not under dispute.

What exactly was a sham about Trump's multiple impeachments?

That people still vote for him.

Either it was a sham or it was a sham lawfare.

This is a false dichotomy. There is a third option: that the impeachments were right, but the American electorate didn't care.

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