In an apparent criticism of President Zelenskyy, President Trump has recently noted that “it’s been a long time since we’ve had an election” in Ukraine. If Winston Churchill were still with us, he would have been able to tell Donald Trump that nations fighting existential wars do not fight elections.
Like the Ukrainians in 2025, the Brits in 1940 were fighting a war of national survival. From October 1940, and every October for the next five years, the Churchill government, obtained legislative consent to extend the life of Parliament for 12 months. The reasons for doing so were obvious then and apply to Ukraine today: to avoid distraction and prosecute the war with utmost vigour as well as to maintain national resilience and avoid division. The Churchill government recognised, as does the Zelenskyy administration, the impracticality of holding an election, with millions of displaced persons across and beyond the nation. Churchill also realised, as the prospect of peace drew near, that it would take some time to organise an election once the war ended and that the vote could not be undertaken immediately on victory.
This issue was initially raised at a senior level by Tiny Kox, the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, in May 2023 when he called for a parliamentary election in Ukraine despite the war. It was reinforced by US Senator Lindsay Graham visiting Kyiv in August 2023 who supported elections to be held in 2024. Subsequently, the idea has been taken up by various Republicans, and recently by President Trump’s inner circle. Moscow is likely to deploy the ‘elections now’ argument as part of its propaganda operation against Ukraine, contrasting the ‘free and fair’ presidential elections Russia held in March 2024 with Ukraine’s refusal to have any in 2025.
The Many Reasons Why Not
Kyiv’s position still holds: since martial law has been declared, under the Constitution, no elections can be held. How could Ukraine undertake credible parliamentary or presidential elections now? Approximately 20% of its territory is still under enemy occupation. Seven million people are refugees, and millions have been internally displaced. It would be difficult, and take considerable time and resources, to create an electoral register. How could soldiers on the front line participate? Moscow would ramp up attacks during the election period to disrupt the vote.
How could candidates announce public meetings without fear of their gatherings becoming targets for Russian missiles? Except for Kyiv, most cities have limited air defences. This danger was exemplified by an attack on a drone convention in Chernihiv in August 2023. In an even more tragic incident in October of that year, a missile targeted a wake for a fallen Ukrainian hero in the village of Hroza, killing 52 people.
And how can national unity be sustained through months of campaigning while also fighting a war of survival? Some technical solutions could be found. Perhaps, Ukraine could deploy digital tools. Yet, the diversion of resources to organise an election as well as the division and discord fraught with any pre-election period, provides a compelling, if not overwhelming, argument against it.
The Prolongation Precedent
Noticeably, the British MPs had almost no debate on what was technically referred to as the ‘Prolongation of Parliament’ during the Second World War. It was needed because the last general election—before the declaration of war on 3 September 1939—was held on 14 November 1935. As the British Parliament lasts a maximum of five years from when it first meets, the mandate of that Parliament was about to expire on 25 November 1940, thereby necessitating a general election.
With the need so pressing and obvious, the only real deliberation occurred in 1940 when Herbert Morrison, then Secretary of State for the Home Department, tabled the first Prolongation bill. He came to the House of Commons on 23 October 1940, a month after the Battle of Britain, while German bombers were still hitting London almost every night. Then, in October 1944, Prime Minister Churchill led for the government on the second reading of what he and Parliament expected to be the last Prolongation. For those five years of war, Secretary Morrison would table a three-sentence bill every October, with each passed by both Houses. In his brief statement, Morrison claimed that:
“The reason for the prolongation of Parliament is that a General Election, while it would not be impossible, would be exceedingly difficult in existing circumstances. I leave to the imagination of hon. Members who are as familiar with electoral battle as I am, the very great difficulties that would be involved in the active prosecution of a General Election in the circumstances that exist at the present time. I do not think it is necessary for me to dilate upon those practical circumstances […].”
The Prime Minister was not challenged on the subject either, except for one question, according to Hansard, the record of proceedings of the British Parliament. On 31 October 1944, for the fifth and final tabling of a Prolongation Bill during the Second World War, Prime Minister Churchill led for the government. By that time, it had already been clear that the war would soon be over. Hence, there was space for a discussion as to when and how the next election could be held. Churchill presciently argued that the war with Germany was unlikely to end by Christmas, and probably not even by Easter, so the government could continue for the time being.
“I am very clearly of the opinion that the [governing] coalition of the parties ought not to be broken before Nazidom is broken. This was the purpose for which we came together in the present National Government, and it is still the supreme purpose which affects the safety of the nation and the Empire.”
The Day After
Churchill then discussed the idea of holding an early election where the parties in the governing coalition would agree not to fight each other—known as a ‘coupon’ election. Aside from the struggle to reach such a ‘no-fight’ agreement, he said, “Many people would think this as hardly a fair way of testing opinion in the country.” The alternative Churchill mulled was fighting an ‘out-and-out’ election while the war with Germany was still ongoing. This he saw as a source of unnecessary division and an undermining of the final prosecution of the war.
“Neither would it be seemly, or indeed practicable, once a dissolution [of Parliament] had been announced, for Ministers to go all over the country expressing the utmost distaste for each other’s views and records and yet be together in Cabinet discussing as colleagues all the gravest matters of the hour.”
Even after the immediate defeat of Germany, there would have to be an interval before an election could be held. The government needed time to ensure as far as possible that all could participate, particularly those who had been fighting for the nation.
“Moreover we have above all things to be careful that practically everybody entitled to vote has a fair chance to do so. This applies above all to the soldiers, many of whom are serving at great distances from this country. Nothing would be more shameful or more dishonourable than to deny the great mass of the soldiers, and Service men of the Air Force and of the Navy, a full opportunity of recording their votes. In my opinion they have more right to vote than anyone else in the country, and we should all be ashamed if anything were done which prevented these men, to whom we owe almost everything, from taking their full part in deciding the immediate future of their country.”
Churchill also discussed the relevance to any future election of the ongoing war against Japan, implicitly stating that it was not existential to national survival—unlike the war against Germany. It was to defeat Germany that the national coalition government was formed. Once that objective was obtained, Parliament could be dissolved and free and fair elections held. In October 1944, Germany was about to launch the V2 sustained ballistic missile campaign on the UK. Between then and the end of March 1945, over 1 400 V2 rockets would be dropped on London alone.
There Is Time For Everything
What Ukraine can draw from British practice and Churchill’s own observations is this: Organising elections amid a war of national survival is likely to imperil the objective of winning that war. In times like these, the overall objective must be the prosecution of the war with vigour and the maintenance of national unity. In such a context, elections distract from that objective. They drain resources—physical and human—from this immediate task and risk becoming a source of division.
Britain’s history and Ukraine’s present dispel the position taken by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly President as it fails to recognise the realities of a nation at war. The security threats from the Russian Federation require an utter focus and national unity until these threats have been defeated.
Views expressed in ICDS publications are those of the author(s).