Ukraine, Zelensky’s mandate has expired but no elections. Here because

New elections should have been held by March 31st. However, things changed with the entry into force of martial law

ROME – With the front increasingly under pressure, and the opponents ready to play the “May 21 card”, Volodymyr Zelensky could find himself facing his most difficult political challenge: “renewing the contract with the people” . Those people who are committed to serving, as stated in the title of the TV series in which he was the protagonist before being elected president of Ukraine in 2019.
The thesis, from the British weekly The Economist , is contained in an article published close to the “natural” expiry of the head of state’s mandate. We are talking about the “May 21st card”. The 20th, i.e. today, is the day on which the mandate should have ended. This at least was expected when Zelensky had been elected with 73 percent of the vote and when the phase of the conflict with Russia had not yet reached its peak with Moscow’s offensive on multiple fronts, which began on 24 February 2022.

As recalled by an editorial published today by the state news agency Ukrinform, new elections should have been held by March 31st. However, things have changed, we always read in the article. And the war situation, with the entry into force of martial law, would have prevented the elections from taking place. Ukrinform claims that the vote would have been impossible: “Last March alone, Russia launched over 400 missiles, over 600 kamikaze drones and over 3 thousand remote-controlled bombs”.
Going to the polls would have been too dangerous in a large swathe of the country, which from Chernihiv, in the north, reaches Odessa, in the south. Not counting the people forced to leave the country due to the bombings: around seven million adults, not including citizens residing in the territories under Russian control.