Zelensky’s wear and tear (original)

For more than two and a half years, war has been the raison d’être of the Ukrainian state. The budget presented by Kyiv this week allocates more than 50% of the budget to the defence sector – to which must be added the cost of veterans – something that has been repeated since 2022. Maintaining the front, avoiding its collapse and ensuring that there is still enough support to continue fighting until the objectives are achieved is the priority of the government team, which has set aside practically all other obligations of the state, which today depends entirely on foreign subsidies that make it possible to pay salaries and pensions. One of the aspects that has completely disappeared under the cover of the unity demanded by the war is precisely domestic politics. The Russian invasion gave Zelensky’s team the opportunity to create for the president the image of a war leader, the representation of the nation, a savior capable of achieving what he sets out to do, the only person capable of rescuing the country from certain ruin.

“‘We are all here,’ Zelensky said from outside the presidential office, as his closest political allies cheered him on. ‘We are all here defending our independence and our state.’ His words lifted the morale of his beleaguered nation and boosted his popularity, both at home and abroad. On his visits to the West to support Ukraine, the former comedian was greeted with standing ovations in European parliaments and the US Congress,” wrote The Times in an article on Friday, describing the Ukrainian president’s falling popularity.

Curiously, this weekend, just a couple of days after the publication of the article in the London daily Europa Press, with statements from members of one of the think-tanks most cited by the Spanish media on the Russian-Ukrainian issue, CIDOB, it argued practically the opposite. “The war plunges Ukraine into electoral limbo, for now without any wear and tear on Zelensky,” it stated in its headline, later justifying the absence of elections in the legislation and the fact that there have been no popular demands. “Claudín does not believe that Zelensky’s legitimacy is now “at risk” and highlights the fact that there is a “public debate” in relation to the elections, typical of a “democratic life,” writes Europa Press, describing the democratic environment of a country in which parties have been banned for ten years, the same electoral tricks that would be criticized as antidemocratic if they occurred in Russia are carried out, and it has been taken for granted that there will be no local, legislative or presidential elections until the war is over. The quality of Ukrainian democracy was also evident during the Euro, when a huge banner reading “We want to vote” was strategically placed in front of the centre circle and in the main stand so that it could be seen at all times during the general shot of the match, but was removed by the organisers during the first half of the match. The taboo of politics had not disappeared then and it still exists now, when it is still necessary to defend Zelensky’s democratic choice to cancel the elections – for which there are certainly no conditions – without even having to ask for a qualified opinion from the Supreme Court, with which the Ukrainian president was already at odds before the Russian invasion.

The sine die postponement of the elections does not make electoral erosion possible, although Zelensky’s figure is indeed suffering from this process. The nationalist enthusiasm of the first months of the war, even more exalted thanks to the three victories that Ukraine has obtained in this war (Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson) has already disappeared and the harshness of the war has an effect on the morale of the population, its will to continue fighting and on the image of those who defend that option. In the same way that in 2022 Zelensky was seen as the representation of the fight, an option that was clearly the majority option then, he continues to be so now when he is no longer. The polls published in recent months are clear enough and, despite excluding those who reside in the territories under Russian control – both those who have been outside the control of Ukraine for a decade and where the population has shown its rejection of Ukraine, and those captured since February 24, 2022 – the majority option currently is that of negotiation. The Gallup poll even shows a majority willing to make territorial concessions in exchange for peace, despite the fact that there is no confidence in Ukraine’s accession to the EU or NATO, security guarantees that the government claims are mandatory for Kyiv to consider negotiating.

“With Ukraine’s defences in danger of crumbling, Zelensky’s popularity is fading and very few Ukrainians see him as their next president,” writes The Times. Unlike CIDOB, which sees the absence of a clear candidate as a way to claim that Zelensky has not suffered an evident erosion, the British media sees the poll data as a further concern for the current president. “Only 16% would vote in favour of his re-election for a second term, according to an opinion poll of 1,200 Ukrainians published this week by the Centre for Social Control in Kiev. The survey, the most comprehensive study of electoral preferences since the invasion in 2022, also found that nearly 60% would prefer Zelensky not to even stand for re-election,” explains The Times, which justifies a significant part of the erosion in how long the war has dragged on. Ukraine began to claim in March 2022 that Russia would run out of missiles within weeks and soon presented its new weapons – HIMARS, Patriots, Leopards, F-16s – as the wunderwaffe that would forever change the direction of the war. Almost three years later, the war has not only not stopped but continues with the dynamics of progressive escalation, now with Western missile bombardments of the Russian Federation. Even so, time has not proven the Ukrainian president right and the situation on the front, far from improving, is worsening for Ukraine. The uncertainty of the future, coupled with the poverty of the present, are the main factors for the loss of the credit that a large part of the population gave to Zelensky in 2022.

For much of this time, when elections were not possible but when the government did nothing to retain the slightest democratic legitimacy, there was no figure who could challenge Zelensky. That was one of the main arguments in a long thread published by the Ukrainian edition of the BBC to justify the unlimited extension of the current president’s mandate. There was no need to hold elections because no one was going to beat Zelensky in any way – an argument that could also be extended to Russia, where elections are subject to the highest scrutiny.

Unsurprisingly, given that parliamentary and political life in general came to a standstill in February 2022 and the President’s Office has done everything in its power to ensure that it does not resume, the figure leading the polls is directly linked to the war. “Topping the poll, ahead of Zelensky, with 27%, is Valerii Zaluzhny, former commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces and, since July, ambassador to Great Britain. Zaluzhny, who was dismissed by Zelensky in February following a rumoured disagreement over the management of the war, is also the most trusted Ukrainian figure, according to the poll. Although he has not yet openly declared his political ambitions, his appointment to a diplomatic post in London was seen by many analysts as an attempt by Zelensky to marginalise him,” explains The Times, which does not specify that Zaluzhny has been identified with the victories of the first phase of the war but that, after his dismissal, he is disconnected from the current military situation, perceived as much more serious and without the offensive possibilities that existed even before the Zelensky-Zaluzhny confrontation began.

The absolute impediment to any kind of opposition in Ukraine today makes it difficult to analyse the chances of the different presidential candidates. In 2022, with Zelensky presented as the hero whom the entire country defended, it was not viable to present alternatives, whereas now, when the President’s Office has accumulated all the power and prevents the normal development of political life, any alternative option is demonised as an example of the internal enemy . The delegitimisation of Petro Poroshenko and Yulia Tymoshenko, the main political figures of the last decade, was practically complete before the Russian invasion and although Valery Zaluzhny could be considered a proxy for that nationalist sector headed by Poroshenko, Parubiy or Goncharenko, there are no certainties about the day after the war. For the time being, aware that there will be no electoral process in the short or medium term, the candidates remain in the shadows, presenting themselves as patriots of Ukraine, heading organizations supposedly dedicated to humanitarian aid and presenting themselves to the population as institutions that fill the void that the State is not filling. Always generously financed from abroad, these organizations are positioning themselves to gain credibility that, in the future, could translate into political support.

Zelensky, who came to power promising to compromise with Russia to end the war in Donbass, achieved electoral victory at the hands of one of the oligarchs. That time is long gone and it is no longer that select group of Ukrainians, among whom Rinat Akhmetov stood out, the patron of the now banned and branded pro-Russian parties, who can sponsor future political figures, now under the orders of foreign sponsors with a greater capacity to intervene in the Ukrainian economy and politics.

The evident erosion of Zelensky’s current status, due to the chronicity of the war and the poverty it brings, is analogous to that suffered by his predecessor during the first years of his presidency, when hopes for resolution and peace were dissipated amid an overly similar nationalist political agenda. With Poroshenko discredited due to his poor management, Zelensky and his team worked to discredit the only party that, at the time, overshadowed its leader, the now banned Opposition Platform for Life, which once topped the polls. This effort failed to increase his popularity in the nationalist regions and cost him much of the trust in the south and east. On the eve of the Russian invasion, Zelensky’s popularity had collapsed, although there was no political figure who enjoyed great popularity then either. The Russian invasion, which perpetuated Zelensky’s rule and turned him into a Western-supported hero, rescued his political career. Now, in a political situation similar to that of two years ago, only a victory or a perceived resolution could once again rescue Zelensky, whose career has become inevitably linked to the war.