Yatsenyuk: Election talk now is irresponsible – for Ukraine and for politicians' careers
Head of Kyiv Security Forum, former Prime Minister of Ukraine (2014-2016) Arseniy Yatsenyuk has noted that talks about elections in Ukraine have been going on since the first year of the full-scale invasion, but they demoralize their participants.
"Thinking about elections now is irresponsible not only in relation to the country, but also in relation to one's own political career, no matter who it concerns. The hysteria about holding elections has been going on all the years of the full-scale war. The first discussions within the Ukrainian parliament about holding them began back in 2022, it was May. I said then: guys, have you gone crazy? But the prevailing belief was that victory would be tomorrow... All this continues even now," Yatsenyuk said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
He stressed that elections will be held in Ukraine only after the war ends on acceptable terms, and by talking about them, politicians destabilize and demoralize society and the political class.
"Today, the agenda is to preserve the Ukrainian state. Then we will have elections and you will get every opportunity to tell how you fought for Ukraine during the war and will fight after it," Yatsenyuk said.
He said that after the term of the Prime Minister, he does not work with the electoral Ukrainian audience from the point of view of elections, but works "to explain the processes taking place in Ukraine and the world," calling it "another form of political activity." "In 2007, I created Kyiv Security Forum, an analogy of the Munich Security Conference, knowing that the time would come when it would be necessary to do work without a position. Since then, I have been heading Kyiv Security Forum. This is not a classic political electoral activity, it is based on a foreign policy direction. The status of a former prime minister and all positions, except perhaps the presidential one, the rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine, plus a large number of contacts abroad, make it possible to convey to the Western audience what Ukraine needs today in conditions of war," Yatsenyuk said.
