Ukraine Poll: Zelenskyy Would Lose Election if He Didn't Cancel It Due to War

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would lose an election to Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief he recently fired, according to a poll.

A survey by the Kyiv-based firm SOCIS conducted Feb. 22-March 1 asked 3,000 Ukrainians how they would vote in a hypothetical ballot, Newsweek reported.

If an election were held, 41% of respondents would have backed Gen. Zaluzhnyi in the first round, compared with 23.7% for Zelenskyy. The margin of error was 2.1 percentage points.

Zelenskyy fired Gen. Zaluzhnyi from his post in February, following months of speculation about a rift between the pair. He was replaced by the commander of Ukrainian Land Forces Oleksandr Syrskyi.

Gen. Zaluzhnyi is a popular general trusted by Ukrainian soldiers and the public and has been a national hero, the BBC reported.

Zelenskyy said he and Gen. Zaluzhnyi had a "frank conversation" about the changes needed in the army, and he said he thanked the general for defending Ukraine from Russia, according to the BBC.

The election poll comes as Ukraine is in a fierce stalemate battle against Russia. The war has been raging for more than two years.

Ukraine's constitution mandates presidential elections take place on the last Sunday of March in the fifth year of the incumbent's term, which would have been March 31. However, following Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv has declared martial law which prohibits elections being held.

In Ukrainian elections, if there is no candidate with a majority, a second round would be held and this scenario would see Zaluzhnyi get over two-thirds (67.5%) of the vote, compared with roughly a third (32.5%) who would back the incumbent, according to the poll.

The next most popular figure was Petro Poroshenko, whom Zelenskyy defeated in 2019, getting the backing of 6.4% of the survey's respondents.

Some U.S. lawmakers have called for Ukraine to hold a wartime election. However, the majority of respondents (59.7%) in the poll rejected this idea, compared with a quarter (24.2%) who said a ballot should be held.

President Zelenskyy insists an election must be held in accordance with the highest standards of democracy possible and should not detract from the country's national defense efforts.

"Almost 20% of Ukraine's territory is occupied," according to the Kennan Institute's blog. "Some settlements are entirely destroyed, while others lack the necessary infrastructure to enable voting. With Russian military forces targeting civilian infrastructure, ensuring the safety of voters, election officials, and observers is simply impossible."