Ministry of Digital: Holding elections in “Diia” is not currently being considered

Holding elections through "Diia" is not currently being considered. No practical or technical work in this direction is being conducted in the application.

This was stated by the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov during a live broadcast on TikTok.

According to him, currently the discussion about voting in potential elections in "Diia" exists exclusively at the level of public discussions. Neither the Ministry of Digital Affairs nor the "Diia" team is working on implementing such an option.

But if the Central Election Commission (CEC) decides to hold the elections online, the Verkhovna Rada must vote for the appropriate amendments to the law, Fedorov added.

"For this, the parliament needs to vote on amendments to the laws, CEC needs to decide whether this is necessary, and who will do it. And at the moment, apart from some online discussion, no work is being done in this area," the head of the Ministry of Digital Affairs noted.

Elections in Ukraine

President Volodymyr Zelenskyʼs term was supposed to end in May 2024, but elections cannot be held due to the war. The Constitution does not directly prohibit elections during martial law; such a ban is contained in the law "On the Legal Regime of Martial Law".

At the same time, the Constitution contains a number of requirements for elections and referendums that cannot be fulfilled during active hostilities. Therefore, Ukraine insists that elections are possible only under the condition of a ceasefire and security guarantees.

Despite this, Russia regularly demands elections and calls the current government illegitimate. The United States has also joined these demands. President Donald Trump said in an interview on December 9 that “the time has come” to hold elections in Ukraine.

Zelensky responded on the same day that he was ready to hold elections and “is not holding on” to the presidential seat. But security issues, the voting of the military, and the legislative basis for the legitimacy of the elections remain.

The head of the “Servant of the People” faction Davyd Arakhamia stated on December 22 that the MPs in the Verkhovna Rada are forming a working group that should promptly work out the issue of the possible holding of presidential elections during martial law.

Its creation was later approved by the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Ruslan Stefanchuk. He stated that the law on elections during wartime would be applied once.

Following the results of the first meeting of the group working on the draft law on elections, the head of the “Servant of the People” faction Davyd Arakhamia, announced a possible option for a hybrid voting format — offline and online. This is due to the difficulties of organizing voting for Ukrainian refugees abroad.

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