• ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    62
    arrow-down
    24
    ·
    edit-2
    2 months ago

    To be fair, they’re (understandably) under martial law which has been extended in 90 day increments since 2022 with parliamentary approval. Elections aren’t to be held under martial law per Ukranian law, and there have been referenda votes held among the Rada to determine if elections should be held, which failed.

    Edit: referendum would entail direct democracy. That isn’t what happened - it was just a vote by the legislature.

    • 小莱卡@lemmygrad.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      34
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      2 months ago

      I would buy this if westerners applied the same nuance to states under imperialist siege, but of course they never have that nuance.

      • ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        I agree that the situation isn’t treated with nuance, typically, by westerners. But in this case, this is neither particularly nuanced nor naïve - it’s just a statement of fact that the parliament has voted repeatedly to extend martial law.

        That doesn’t mean Ukraine is a super-democratic country. It only means that it is the case that the government, made up of elected representatives (and yes, Ukraine banned 11 political parties for alleged Russian ties - one of them with ~10% of parliamentary seats - so the representativeness of the legislature is certainly debatable) has voted to not allow presidential elections until the war is over.

        Obviously it’d take a much longer explanation to capture all of the relevant geopolitical context, but this is a factually accurate statement about what is happening, yes?

        • 小莱卡@lemmygrad.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          2 months ago

          Let me get this right, they purged the opposition and afterwards vote to mantain power? 😅

          • ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            2 months ago

            They purged roughly 10% - 12% of the opposition by parliament seats, yeah - that means it is at least that much less democratic. I’m just stating facts here. This isn’t a strong defense of the democratic values of Ukraine, just a statement that they aren’t wholly undemocratic as suggested in the meme - it’s misleading.

    • papalonian@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      7
      ·
      2 months ago

      Genuine questions:

      Was he seemingly fairly elected originally, and did he hold elections previously? (I don’t know how Ukrainian elections work or how long he was in office before 2022)

      How “in control” is he of the parliament / the referenda determining elections? Is it a Trump situation where all his buddies are in position to say, “sure! give him all the power!”, or is there more separation?

      I’m admittedly relatively uninformed in the conflict, but I will say it was interesting seeing the general opinion of Lemmy go from “Slava Ukraini, fuck Russian Nazis, here’s some footage of Russian teenagers getting blown up with drones, Trump bad for not wanting to give aid” to “Zelensky is a fascist war criminal and also a Nazi and dumb American liberals are bad for siding with them” seemingly overnight. The switch happened a while ago but it was apparently unanimous.

      • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        19
        ·
        2 months ago

        the general opinion of Lemmy go from “Slava Ukraini, fuck Russian Nazis, here’s some footage of Russian teenagers getting blown up with drones, Trump bad for not wanting to give aid” to “Zelensky is a fascist war criminal and also a Nazi and dumb American liberals are bad for siding with them” seemingly overnight. The switch happened a while ago but it was apparently unanimous.

        Lemmy has always had people who took the second position, and still has people who take the first position. There has been a general shift, but it was neither sudden nor unanimous.

        • papalonian@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          2 months ago

          When I first joined Lemmy, those that held the second opinion were down voted en masse and we’re always lambasted as Russian trolls and Nazi sympathizers. I never saw a pro Russia / anti Ukraine post or comment with positive votes. Nowadays I don’t think I see many explicitly “pro Russia” posts but there’s a good number of anti Ukraine posts that are relatively high on the front page, and most pro Ukraine comments have at least one upvoted reply calling them a liberal or pro-fascist.

          I didn’t necessarily mean unanimous as in, “everyone now has this opinion”, so much as “the hive mind has decided that we now upvote this opinion and down vote that one”. Like, there’s Trump supporters on Lemmy, whenever they comment anything pro-Trump it’s kind of a given (not necessarily saying a good one) that it’s going to get downvoted, and most things critical of him will get upvoted even if it’s not the most accurate or ingenuous criticism. To me, it very much seemed like one week it was “upvote Ukraine, downvote Russia!”, and the next it was “downvote Ukraine, Russia…🤷🏽‍♂️!”. Somewhere around the Iran shitshow.

      • cornishon@lemmygrad.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        2 months ago

        Zelensky was fairly elected because his platform was peace with Russia and he had strong messaging about how Russians and Ukrainians are brotherly nations. Of course he then immediately dropped the pretense the moment he got elected and started passing anti-Russian laws.

        • RiverRock@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          24
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          2 months ago

          Of course it is, liberal vanity and solipsism means you cannot possibly countenance the prospect of an actual person disagreeing with you unless money has changed hands.

        • KimBongUn420@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          22
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          2 months ago

          My assumption is that the NATO/nafo psyops teams utilize reddit and communities like .world and have been influencing opinions, the same as they have previously on Facebook.

        • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          15
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          2 months ago

          Yes, because you’re an extremist who can’t imagine anyone genuinely disagreeing with you

        • Devadander@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          2 months ago

          It would be naive to believe otherwise. Stay vigilant, and disconnect when you can. This shit is poison