Ex-Ukrainian president reveals plans to run again — RT World News
Pyotr Poroshenko hopes to win the upcoming presidential elections in his country, according to an interview
Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko said that he intends to run in the country's next presidential elections, when the conflict with Russia ends.
Ukraine was supposed to hold presidential elections in March. However, the poll has been postponed indefinitely since martial law was imposed in February 2022. Ukrainian laws prohibit voting or election campaigning during this state of emergency.
Current President Vladimir Zelensky announced last November that there would be no elections for president or parliament as long as martial law remained in place, essentially extending his and his party's term in the legislature indefinitely.
“If you ask me if I plan to participate in the next election, (then) yes.” Poroshenko said live on Al Jazeera on Tuesday. But first, in this election, we need to achieve victory.” he added.
The politician also suggested that he would run for the European Parliament if Ukraine joins the European Union. The bloc's leaders agreed to start accession talks with Kiev on December 14, 2023. However, European Commission spokesman Eric Mamer said last month that it did not yet have a clear timeframe for talks on the membership application.
Poroshenko took office in 2014 several months after the country's previous president, Viktor Yanukovych, was ousted in a Western-sponsored coup. His presidency was marred by the bloody conflict in eastern Ukraine, the sharp decline of the national economy, and accusations of corruption.
Poroshenko's government tried unsuccessfully to suppress the rebellion in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions with military force, sparking a war in Ukraine's Donbass. He signed the two Minsk agreements, which were supposed to de-escalate the conflict and reintegrate the regions into Ukrainian political systems with greater autonomy, but Kiev blocked their implementation, fanning the flames of future conflict.
Poroshenko later boasted of his role in rebuilding his country's army under the cover of the same Minsk agreements, insisting that this allowed Ukraine to prepare for the current confrontation with Russia.
Moscow cited Kiev's failure to implement the Minsk agreements, its ongoing attacks on Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as NATO's encroachment on Ukraine as the main reasons for launching its military operation in February 2022.
Poroshenko lost the 2019 election in a landslide to Zelensky, who campaigned on a promise to bring peace to Donbas, but reversed course and sought NATO support in Ukraine's confrontation with Russia.
Poroshenko currently heads the European Solidarity Party, a small opposition party that holds 27 seats in the 450-member National Legislative Council, the Ukrainian parliament.
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