Ukraine – Democracy at risk? | Q+A - video Dailymotion

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Alexander Zaytsev asked the Q+A panel: My question is for Olga Oleinikova. I was born and grew up in Russia. I feel horrible about the atrocities committed by my country of birth in Ukraine and I stand with people of Ukraine in this conflict. What potential challenges will President Zelensky face this year with the presidential elections having been put on hold due to the martial law extension? It appears that the war can last potentially for many more months, preventing elections. How do you believe this will affect the democracy in Ukraine? Panellists: Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull joins writer and social analyst Rebecca Huntley, along with British historian and academic Peter Frankopan, Ukraine Democracy Initiative co-founder Olga Oleinikova and Sydney University social policy professor Jioji Ravulo. This episode was broadcast on MondayFebruary 26

Transcript

00:00 My question is for Olga Oleynikov.

00:02 I was born and grew up in Russia and I feel horrible about what my country has brought

00:05 this community in Ukraine and I stand with people of Ukraine in this war.

00:10 How do you think the President Zelensky will handle the upcoming sort of the election that

00:14 is supposed to be held this year but could not be because of the martial law?

00:18 It seems that the war could last for many more months and how will it impact the democracy

00:22 in Ukraine?

00:23 Yes, I say thank you so much first of all for your support for Ukraine.

00:27 Yeah, Ukraine has been in this full-scale invasion for the last two years, right, and

00:32 actually we've been in a war since 2014, right, so for us, for whole Ukraine, it's a long

00:38 process, not just two years, right.

00:41 When you talk about Zelensky, Zelensky came to power in 2019, right, so he came just before

00:45 the war, then the war started under his presidency and what is happening now, this should have

00:51 been in elections, right, scheduled for March 2024, so next month.

00:57 He gave a press conference I think in November when he said that, you know, they had internal

01:01 discussions and they all think that it's not a good time for having elections, first of

01:06 all under martial law you can't have elections.

01:09 Second thing, he spoke in interviews about that even if the elections will be held he's

01:14 certain that he will be elected again.

01:17 Again Zelensky had a lot of support and has a lot of support still but he has some challenges

01:24 as well, right, on the way and we should be open about that.

01:29 He's done tremendous things for Ukraine to gain Ukraine's attention, he helped us, because

01:36 I'm Ukrainian, I've lived here in Australia for the last 10 years but when I speak about

01:39 Ukraine I say myself because I still have family there.

01:42 He did a lot to win the media war, I think Ukraine fantastically won it, you know, even

01:47 in the first year.

01:49 But what's happening on the ground, we all can feel that in the last six months there

01:54 was not so many gains from both sides and how long it will last, how long Ukraine will

02:01 pay this price, that's the big thing.

02:05 So yes, elections are off for now and there is a united front on this but we'll see, we'll

02:10 keep watching what's happening, right, and technically under the constitution...

02:16 Sorry, no, no, Peter if I can bring you in, I mean at times of war is this what happens?

02:21 Freedoms are curtailed?

02:22 Well, being British we talk about the Second World War a lot, I mean remember Churchill

02:26 got elected, got booted out of office just after Germany being defeated in Europe so

02:32 politics is highly unpredictable as all of you know.

02:36 I think that the biggest challenge is how the fact that Ukraine wants to postpone elections

02:41 for very obvious reasons in terms of how do you actually conduct it if you have men and

02:45 servicewomen on front lines, how and where do they vote and in what kind of format, the

02:49 worry is that that gets exploited by misinformation, by agitation, particularly in Congress in

02:55 the United States where the worry is that those kind of noises about democracy being

03:00 pushed into something different, martial law can be very easily exploited in the election

03:04 cycle that's coming up in November and of course that will be music to ears in Moscow

03:09 and perhaps beyond too.

03:10 So I think it's very uncertain, it's up to the Ukrainian people to decide how to run

03:14 their own choices of leaders but we'll see how that logjam gets pushed out.

03:20 How much support do you think Zelensky still has on the ground?

03:24 I'd probably ask Olga to have an opinion rather than...

03:27 Olga do you think he's still...

03:28 Look like he's a leader, right?

03:31 People support, people are united around the one single aim to win the war, right?

03:38 He is leading the nation to win the war.

03:41 Yes there are hiccups, there are challenges definitely, like imagine us...

03:44 Well he got rid of his military chief for instance, who was more popular than him.

03:50 That's right, yeah again there's conversations about that, right?

03:52 And there is possibly Aristovic, another guy who was very popular in the beginning of war

03:56 who is now somewhere in the US probably and delivering a completely different narrative.

04:00 I think he's as well potentially another candidate.

04:04 Even yes there are some tensions in the Ukrainian government but I think everything goes secondary

04:13 after the main goal to win the war and to maintain, to return the territorial integrity

04:19 to the 100, sorry 1991 territorial, how Ukraine looked before, like at its independence before

04:27 2014.

04:28 Malcolm Turnbull if you look at what's happening in the United States obviously where this

04:31 has become such a polarised partisan issue, is the West's support for Ukraine wavering

04:39 and what are the dangers of that?

04:41 Well it's very, I mean the danger is that Putin will get what he wants.

04:44 I mean Putin is a ruthless dictator who has invaded Ukraine and he is seeking to demonstrate

04:53 that might is right.

04:55 That's what he's seeking to do, he's trampling on a democracy.

04:59 It's an illegal, criminal, brutal invasion.

05:03 The Ukrainian people have inspired the world with their courage and the leadership of their

05:09 President Zelensky has been an inspiration to all of us as it has been to Ukrainians.

05:15 Without the support of the West they will struggle to defend themselves.

05:22 Regrettably the Republican Party under Donald Trump and particularly the right wing of the

05:27 Republican Party are very sympathetic to Vladimir Putin.

05:32 I mean I've been with Trump and Putin.

05:35 Trump is in awe of Putin.

05:37 When you see Trump with Putin, as I have on a few occasions, he's like the 12 year old

05:45 boy that goes to high school and meets the captain of the football team.

05:51 My hero.

05:52 It is really creepy, it's really creepy.

05:55 And that struck you at the time?

05:57 Absolutely.

05:58 It struck everybody.

05:59 It was, you could touch it.

06:02 It was creepy.

06:03 The creepiness was palpable.

06:04 Are you trying to say they're having a bromance?

06:07 I'm not saying, I'm just telling you what I saw.

06:09 You saw that in that press conference they did in Helsinki.

06:15 You saw a similar thing.

06:18 The sad thing is that you've got the right wing of the Republican Party, you saw this

06:22 with Tucker Carlson, doing that sycophantic kind of non-interview with Vladimir Putin.

06:28 I mean it is terrifying.

06:29 A half an hour history lesson.

06:30 It is terrifying.

06:31 And the scary thing is that for countries like Australia and many European countries,

06:41 we may find ourselves, are we going to find ourselves not dealing just with two autocracies

06:46 in Russia and China, but what is Trump's America going to look like?

06:52 This is a guy leading a party that is no longer committed to democracy as we understand it.

07:00 That's...

07:01 I may know that there are questions around Trump, but I have to pick you up on that because

07:11 that's quite a statement.

07:14 Do you think that America is genuinely sliding into becoming a country that's an autocracy

07:19 that's no longer a democracy?

07:21 Well if by democracy you mean a country that's governed by the rule of law, yeah for sure.

07:26 I mean Donald Trump does not believe the law applies to him.

07:30 Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and refused to accept it and, you know, sulled a mob,

07:39 encouraged a mob to try to overthrow the constitutional process in the Congress, tried to overthrow

07:48 his own constitution.

07:49 And yet he's out-polling Biden at the moment.

07:53 And so there is a contradiction here.

07:56 If you look at the democracy in itself, people are expressing that they're interested in

08:01 him.

08:02 Look, tyrants are often popular.

08:06 You see, the key to democracy, liberal democracy, is that it empowers the majority but it also,

08:13 through the rule of law, constrains the majority.

08:16 And if you get to the point where anybody who can muster a majority - and I don't think

08:22 Trump can do that by the way - but anyone who can muster a majority is given absolute

08:27 power and then can do whatever they like to the minority, that's not a democracy.

08:33 That is a tyranny.

08:35 And that is an autocracy.

08:38 Even if it's got the support of 50, 51 per cent of the population, that is not what makes

08:44 a democracy.

08:46 A democracy as we understand it is one where the rule of law protects all citizens and

08:52 the rule of law applies to all citizens, whether they're the President or the Prime Minister

08:57 or an ordinary, you know, elector.

09:01 We'll keep this discussion going.

Ukraine – Democracy at risk? | Q+A

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