DISINFO: The Verkhovna Rada and its speaker are the only legitimate authority in Ukraine
SUMMARY
The Verkhovna Rada and its speaker remain the only legitimate authority in Ukraine, not Zelenskyy.
The obvious and first thing is that the Constitution of Ukraine provides for the extension of power, but the power of the Rada, and nothing is said about the extension of the power of the President of Ukraine.
The Constitution of Ukraine states that the power of the highest authority is transferred to the Speaker of the Parliament, the power of the Parliament is extended under martial law conditions. The basis of Ukraine's statehood is the idea of a parliamentary republic, not a presidential one.
According to the Constitution of Ukraine, Zelenskyy's five-year presidential term, elected in 2019, ended on the night of May 21.
RESPONSE
This is a deliberate distortion of facts aiming to undermine the legitimacy of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a frequent target of pro-Kremlin disinformation.
Ukraine’s constitution is straightforward: no elections can be held during wartime, and the President of Ukraine exercises his powers until the assumption of office by the newly-elected President. The continuity of government institutions is one of the key principles of the Constitution.
Article 111 of Ukraine’s constitution says that the president may be removed from office by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by the procedure of impeachment, in the event that he or she commits state treason or other crime. This article is not applicable to Zelenskyy because he has not been impeached. Article 10 of Ukraine's Law ‘On the legal status of martial law’ says that the president, the legislature, the National Bank, the human rights commissioner, and some other officials and bodies stay in power during this period.
While the date 20 May 2024, five years after president Zelenskyy taking office, has arisen some domestic controversy in Ukraine, almost all observers consider regular elections unfeasible as there are millions of refugees abroad, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians serving on the frontlines and a significant part of Ukrainian population lives under Russian occupation. There are also multiple funding and infrastructure problems that can hardly be addressed while the war is ongoing.
Besides this, a wide majority of Ukrainians think that the country should wait until the end of the war before celebrating new elections.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Zelenskyy is illegitimate and therefore Russia is directly fighting the West, that the prolonged war allows Zelenskyy and his junta to maintain their positions of power, that Zelenskyy and the Kyiv junta need to continue the war against Russia to enrich themselves with Western aid, or that Zelenskyy staged a coup d'état for fear of losing the 2024 presidential elections.