Volodymyr Zelensky is or isn't a dictator
Key Market report for Friday, 21 February 2025
A new crack in the unity of the Western alliance opened over the question of whether Ukraine's president Zelensky is or isn't a dictator. The West stands unshakably united in our shared values: things like human rights, freedom of speech and a fanatical devotion to the principles of liberal democracy. We do not suffer dictators lightly so when Donald Trump said that Zelensky was a dictator, and that his job approval rating is 4%, some people got very upset, especially in Britain where free and independent media only ever report the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Prime Minister Starmer weighed in, stating that Zelensky is not a dictator, opposition candidate Nigel Farage said so too as did a whole slew of media personalities like Piers Morgan. The narrative emerged that Ukraine is at war, so how could Zelensky possibly hold elections, and that Britain, the world's brightest-shining beacon of democracy and human rights didn't hold elections for ten years around World War II, and on and on. Nigel Farage suggested that Ukraine will hold elections and that an appropriate timeframe for that should be set, but for now, let's just all agree that Zelensky is not a dictator, allright?
The empire of true lies
The actual truth, however, is that Zelensky's term expired last May. Whatever happened in Britain between 1935 and 1945 is irrelevant as is Farage's appropriate timeframe for future elections. Ukraine has a constitution according to which the president serves a 5-year term which cannot be extended for any reason at all. In other words, Zelensky's presidency has been illegal and illegitimate since last May and spinning comforting narratives can't change this.
The fact that Farage, Piers Morgan, Bernard Henry Levy, Danish PM Mette Frederiksen and many others took a stand on this question only reveals their allegiance with respect to the unfolding conflict. Recall, as George Soros correctly said that what we are experiencing in the world today is a conflict between two systems of governance. He suggested that it's a conflict between the open and closed societies, western liberal democracies and eastern autocracies.
But there, interpretations differ. Some, like Vladimir Putin have labelled the West as the Empire of Lies where ideology and official narratives take precedence over truth; it’s an empire where men can get pregnant and where 2 + 2 can be 5. Accordingly, the democratical leaders in this empire need to have a flexible relationship to truth as well as with human rights and democracy. Concretely with respect to Volodymyr Zelensky, here are a few elements in his curriculum vitae:
On February 2, 2021, the day after his first official call with then US president Biden, he banned the largest opposition party Opposition Platform for Life (OPFL). Furthermore, Zelensky signed a National Security and Defense Council decision, taking three main opposition TV channels off the air.
Two weeks later, he had the leader of OPFL, Viktor Medvedchuk arrested and all his properties confiscated.
On March 20, 2022 Zelensky's government banned Ukraine’s 11 opposition parties.
Zelensky consolidated all of Ukraine's independent media into one state-controlled media company broadcasting the truth to the people of Ukraine.
Under Zelensky, Ukraine's security services maintain a hit list of people marked for assassination in Ukraine and abroad. Periodic elimination of individuals on that list is often marked with gloating and intimidation of the list's surviving members.
Journalists who investigate Zelensky's government corruption usually end up forcefully conscripted into the military and vanish on the battlefield.
For he’s a jolly good fellow…
The list goes on and reveals compellingly that Zelensky is indeed not a dictator and Ukraine is a very fine democracy with high human rights standards. Nigel Farage, who called his own Prime Minister a dictator, will wholeheartedly agree. The West is truly the Empire of Truth.
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