President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office has revealed five questions it plans to ask Ukrainians as part of an opinion poll that will be conducted on Oct. 25, when Ukrainians head to their polling places to vote in local elections.
The idea of the poll, which the president announced two days earlier, has sparked heated debate. Some disapproved of holding it on election day, wary that it could interfere in the voting process. Others questioned the true motives behind the poll’s hasty announcement less than two weeks before the elections.
The poll will be conducted outside of the polling stations. It is not a plebiscite, and its results will not have any legal force, the president’s office said. However, it has been presented to the public as ‘true democracy’ and unmediated communication between the Ukrainian president and the Ukrainian people.
“Come and decide,” Zelensky said in a video.
During his presidential campaign, actor-turned-politician Zelensky promised to give the Ukrainian people the power to influence important state decisions through referendums. A bill on such plebiscites is currently awaiting its second reading in the parliament.
Read more: Zelensky’s election day opinion poll criticized as political stunt
The president’s office has not yet clarified the source of financing for conducting the poll. According to the Parliamentary Speaker Dmytro Razumkov, no additional funds have been allocated from the state budget.
Here are the five questions and some context for them.
- Do you support the idea of life imprisonment for large-scale corruption?
Ukraine’s record of convictions of high-profile officials for corruption is poor.
After a three-year struggle to launch, the High Anti-Corruption Court finally began its operations in September 2019. In its first year of existence, the court handed down 18 sentences to investigators, prosecutors, attorneys and one businessperson for taking and offering bribes or, in one case, failing to declare assets, according to Transparency International Ukraine’s tracker. The sentences ranged between 2 to 8 years of prison.
No one implicated in high-profile corruption has been punished yet.
Moreover, the parliament led by Zelensky’s majority has come under criticism for threatening to undermine the independence of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, which has raised concerns among Ukraine’s international backers. Additionally, the prosecutor general, appointed by the president, has been accused of derailing a corruption case against top judge Pavlo Vovk and bribery cases against two Servant of the People lawmakers.
- Do you support the establishment of a free economic zone on the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts?
Creating a free economic zone in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts was among the first proposals that former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk made after he was appointed to lead the Ukrainian delegation to the Minsk talks on ending the war in the Donbas.
Bringing peace to the Donbas remains one of the main promises of President Zelensky. But progress in implementing the Minsk agreements has been slow. Most recently, the talks reached an impasse over local elections, which Russia insists should be held on the occupied territories. Ukraine says it cannot hold them there until it regains full control of its eastern border.
The security situation on the frontline has been relatively calm since the sides agreed to a ceasefire starting July 27. The OSCE monitoring mission still records ceasefire violations, albeit fewer than before July 27.
The Donbas has historically been Ukraine’s industrial powerhouse. But over six years of fighting and Russian-backed militants’ occupation of territory housing coal mines and industrial enterprises has exacerbated the region’s economic decline.
Ukraine imposed a trade blockade on the occupied areas in 2017.
A free economic zone on the government-controlled part of the war-torn region envisions special conditions of taxation and state control over business activities in order to attract investors, Zelensky’s office said in an Oct. 15 statement.
Accelerated economic growth on the Ukrainian-controlled side of the 427-kilometer frontline could become a clear argument for residents on the occupied territories to choose Ukraine and be a boon for future reintegration, the statement continued.
In October 2019, President Zelensky held the first Donbas investment forum in Mariupol.
Read more: Zelensky outlines ambitious plans to rebuild Donbas at Mariupol gathering
- Do you support reducing the number of lawmakers in parliament to 300?
Currently, there are 424 lawmakers in the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. Their number decreased from 450 as a result of the occupation of parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts by Russian-backed separatists and the illegal annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014.
Zelensky submitted a draft bill proposing changes to the Constitution to lower the number of lawmakers to 300 on Aug. 29, 2019, the first day of work for the current parliament, where his party controls a majority of seats.
On Feb. 4, the draft bill received preliminary approval from the parliamentary committees, according to the parliament’s website, but it has not yet been put to a vote.
- Do you support the legalization of cannabis for medical use — for pain relief in severely ill patients?
In June, activists from organizations advocating for patients’, veterans’ and human rights held a rally in front of the presidential office in Kyiv calling for the legalization of medical cannabis for use in treating chronic pain, epilepsy, cancer, post-traumatic stress disorder and other medical conditions and palliative care.
There was one draft bill on legalizing cannabis, registered with the previous parliament after a petition gathered 25,000 signatures. However, it was automatically revoked on the day the new parliament was sworn-in.
During his press conference last October, Zelensky said the legalization of cannabis was not on his agenda because other issues had a higher priority. Lawmakers in his party, Servant of the People, promised to register a draft bill on legalizing medical marijuana.
- Do you support Ukraine’s right to use the security guarantees established by the Budapest Memorandum for restoring its state sovereignty and territorial integrity?
The last question is still under discussion, according to Mykhailo Podolyak, a communications adviser to the President’s Office, who shared the list with Novoye Vremya magazine.
The question could be interpreted as asking indirectly whether Ukraine should restore its nuclear arsenal, which it voluntarily gave up under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Back then, the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom pledged to respect the independence and the existing borders of Ukraine and “to refrain from the threat or use of force.”
After Russian proxies waged war in eastern Ukraine and Russia used military force to illegally annex Crimea in 2014, Ukrainians have grown resentful of the Budapest Memorandum and questioned whether signing it was a mistake. The common sentiment is that Russia broke the agreement, and the response of the U.S. and the U.K. was weak.
The question could also potentially refer to a proposal to add the U.S. and U.K. to peace negotiations over the Donbas, besides France, Germany, and Russia. Zelensky voiced the idea in a message addressed to Russian President Vladimir Putin published on Facebook in July 2019.
If this is what the poll is hinting at, it raises one major question: Why ask about it in such an oblique, unclear way?
