Legitimacy Under Fire: How Ukraine Governs Without Elections
- EU and strategic partners,
- EU institutional affairs,
- EU strategy and foreign policy,
- Europe in the World,
Ukraine confronts a legitimacy dilemma. With war precluding elections, Kyiv must govern without electoral renewal, even as the need for democratic legitimacy grows. The government’s legitimacy is the basis for Ukraine’s wartime resilience and essential for credible peace negotiations and EU accession. In 2025, nonelectoral accountability worked when civil society and EU conditionality jointly reversed setbacks in the anticorruption fight. Yet, accountability remains reactive, and centralised power requires safeguards. For Brussels, safeguarding legitimacy means opening negotiations on cluster 1 (fundamentals) to enshrine rule-of-law benchmarks and applying strict conditionality. For Kyiv, this means protecting state institutions.
CLICK “VIEW PDF” BELOW FOR ACCESS TO FULL POLICY BRIEF
(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)