By Gvantsa Machitidze
BA International Relations Student at Anglo-American University, Prague
October 2025 • 5-Minute Read

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Elections are one of the biggest contradictions among authoritarian and democratic regimes in the world. In some cases, the existence of ballots triggers our analysis of a country to a degree that manipulation with elections is one of the well-known practices in politics. The question whether Ukraine’s current president and parliament are illegitimate due to the postponed elections can be connected to a vary of causal factors. When measuring legitimacy of one’s government, we need to take into consideration its specific national governmental documents and the laws that define the licitness of power. The essay will approach historical precedents of rare wartime elections, then will cover the articles of constitution of Ukraine, and finally the questions raised against Ukrainian government as a possible tool of weakening its legitimacy. In this essay I will argue for Ukraine’s government’s legitimacy and its 3 pillars: constitutional continuity, political consensus, and international recognition. In addition, I will reinforce the idea to what extend the manipulating information can be seen as a propagandist practice from rivals.

Historically speaking, elections during on-going war is less likely to occur. What we usually see is postponed elections. The article Ukraine’s Constitutional Order in Wartime: Elections, Continuity, and Legitimacy argues that countries facing an existential threat should not be forced to have new elections during the on-going war (Vodiannikov, 2025). As discussed in the journal, the United States presidential election’s practice in 1944 could not fit Ukraine’s case since “the conflict was thought oversears, and the electoral process remained unaffected within the U.S mainland” where a direct threat to the security of population is not evantuate. Another precedent raised by the article is The United Kingdom: “In 1918 and 1945, elections were held only after hostilities had ceased in Europe, ensuring that electoral processes were conducted securly and without interference from ongoing warfare” (Vodiannikov, 2025). In the mentioned article, the writer’s point to highlight the difference between the historical events and Ukraine is quite clear, since ballots in the active period of war can be argued to be any kind of practice but democratic one.

To build on the historical cases, we need to dive into the constitution of Ukraine and point out the accuracy of Ukrainian government’s actions. There are number of reasons I think people prefer to label this as a façade democracy; albeit, the idea of the governments postponing elections can be seen as an illiberal practice, which in some cases can be a regime type too, can be interpreted as a form of manipulation to stay in power. Due to the fact that legitimacy is the “process of gaining support which is based on an empirical, Weberian tradition of ‘legitiamacy belief’, free from normative connotations and therefore does not run counter to the oxymoron criticism” (Gerschewski, 2013), postponing elections for non-emergency situations can be classified as blatant electoral fraud by nature. Notwithstanding the constitution of Ukraine does not specifically provide instructions of conducting elections during war, it is still in favor of current government’s legitimacy. As discussed in the article,

Ukraine’s Constitution does not explicitly address the issue of wartime elections, except for Article 83(4) that provides for the extension of the Parliament’s powers until the day of the first meeting of the first session of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (the Ukrainian Parliament), elected after the termination of martial law or state of emergency. Nothing similar is made with respect to the president. According to one of the drafters of the Constitution, this special treatment of Parliament was originally aimed to enhance Parliament’s standing in the constellation of powers and prevent possible abuses during wartime or national emergency (Vodiannikov, 2025).

It’s fair to say that question of legitimacy of government in Ukraine is open for the interpretation currently. It’s crucial to hightlight that we are trying to percieve the actions of government in the on-going war and our perception may be misleading. When we try to define something ambigous, it is much rather easy to state what it’s not. Henceforth, I would argue “conducting elections under the current conditions of war in Ukraine can undermine democratic principles and, therefore, is unconstitutional” (Vodiannikov, 2025). In addition to what have stated above, as suggested in the article, “Ukraine’s legitimacy is reinforced through constitutional provisions, democratic consensus, and international validation” (Vodiannikov, 2025). Personally speaking, constitutional continuity has pivotal role in determining countries democratic path in the future. Not only Ukraine’s threat is matter of existence, but also post-war tendencies to backlash into illiberal practices. Hypothetically speaking, if Ukraine would have new presidential elections, it will struggle to have international recognition due to the non-democratic conditions. Furthermore, one can assume that allegations on manipulating with postponed elections can be a Russian propaganda, since misinformation and controlling news to question legitimacy is one of the authoritarian practices (Higashijima, 2024; Svolik, 2012).

Consequently, throughout the history we have a plethora of cases of postponed elections; some with the authoritarian characteristics and others due to the emergency settings. Ukraine with the on-going war is acting on behalf of constitutional continuity. The essay pointed out the constitutional legitimacy of Ukraine’s current government due to the emergency factors. As much as elections cannot be only distinguishment between authoritarian and liberal practices we cannot measure strategical aim of the leader by postponing the elections for now (Idea.int, 2025).

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Bibliography

“Explainer: Conducting Elections during War.” Idea.int. 2025. https://www.idea.int/news/explainer-conducting-elections-during-war

Johannes Gerschewski (2013). “The Three Pillars of Stability: Legitimation, Repression, and Co-optation in Autocratic Regimes.” Democratization, 20(1), 13–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2013.738860

Masaaki Higashijima. “Autocratic Elections: Decoding Modern Authoritarianism.” Politics and Rights Review, July 27, 2024. https://politicsrights.com/autocratic-elections-decoding-authoritarianism/

Milan W. Svolik (2012). “Introduction: The Anatomy of Dictatorship” in The Politics of Authoritarian Rule. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
https://books.google.cz/books?id=6fUgAwAAQBAJ&lpg=PR13&ots=SNd8HgK3_z&dq=anatomy%20of%20dictatorship%20svolik&lr&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=anatomy%20of%20dictatorship%20svolik&f=false

Vodiannikov, Oleksandr. “Ukraine’s Constitutional Order in Wartime: Elections, Continuity, and Legitimacy.” VerfBlog, 2025/2/10. https://verfassungsblog.de/ukraines-constitution-in-wartime/