Sociological polls indicate that Vladimir Zelensky still has a good chance of winning the second round of the presidential elections in Ukraine, which will take place this Sunday. Zelensky’s success is primarily a result of the majority of Ukrainians’ disappointment with the current president of the country, Petro Poroshenko, the reasons for which we have already discussed. However, it is still unclear what concrete changes Zelensky’s victory will bring to Ukraine, as his rhetoric is vague and he is not open to open discussion. The only information available is from statements made by his team and the composition of that team, which was announced today.
This also concerns Muslims, whose issues are of primary concern to us, and through the prism of their interests we evaluate any politician and encourage our fellow believers to do the same.
First of all, it is important to understand that the most important Muslim component for Ukraine, which will determine its attitude to Islam as a whole by 95%, are the Crimean Tatars. Their presence in Ukraine, not just as a diaspora or Muslim immigrants, but as their own Muslim people with indigenous status, is the only thing that distinguishes Ukraine from other Eastern European countries, where Islamic communities are small and marginalized due to their tiny size and temporary nature.
With the de facto loss of Crimea and the majority of its Muslim population, Ukraine has essentially become just another Eastern European country. De jure, however, Ukraine still considers Crimea to be its own and declares the task of its return. Politically, its attitude towards this issue and how it will attempt to achieve it will determine its relationship with the Crimean Tatars and, consequently, the Islamic factor.
Despite all the criticism that can be levelled at President Petro Poroshenko, it is important to note two things. First, under his leadership, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has actively and continuously raised the issue of Crimea under Russian control and the problems of the Crimean Tatars in the international arena. Repressions against them are in the focus of Kyiv, with constant and prompt official evaluations, attracting the attention of the international community, and the Ukrainian Consulate in Russia deals with Ukrainian citizens, including Crimean Tatars, who are imprisoned there.
Secondly, it was President Poroshenko who, against the dissatisfaction of many Ukrainian politicians, proposed the adoption of a law and amendments to the Ukrainian Constitution that would establish Crimea as a national-territorial autonomy for the Crimean Tatar people within Ukraine. Furthermore, the structures of this autonomy are planned to be located in the neighboring Kherson region prior to the de-occupation of Crimea. If such legal acts are adopted, the status of the indigenous Muslim population in Ukraine will be significantly enhanced.
And what does Volodymyr Zelensky think about this? «Golos Islama» [The Voice of Islam] wrote this week about the questions posed to Zelensky on these issues by the moral leader of the Crimean Tatar people, Mustafa Dzhemilev, and the response of Zelensky’s team. However, Dzhemilev was dissatisfied with the fact that the candidate for the head of state did not consider it necessary to answer these important questions himself and instead entrusted them to his team, whose statements have no legal or moral force. In addition, Dzhemilev noted that he did not receive a direct answer to the question about the status of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, although in our opinion the wording of Zelensky’s team can be seen as a negative answer. They do not intend to insist on the granting of national-territorial autonomy to the Crimean Tatars of Crimea, limiting themselves to promises of «a specific support plan and guarantees from the state and its Western partners».
But equally indicative of Zelensky’s approach to the Muslim issue is the composition of his team, which was announced two days before the elections, apparently in the hope that voters would not have time to understand and evaluate it properly. We do not want to burden the readers with an analysis of the clan affiliations of the members of this team, as there is no lack of such information in the Ukrainian segment of social networks today. What caught our attention, however, was the affiliation of several members of this team with the group of experts of the Ukrainian Institute of the Future.
Meanwhile, experts from this institute were involved in the campaign against the recognition of national-territorial autonomy for the Crimean Tatars, which may explain the evasive response of Zelensky’s team to Dzhemilev’s question. It is also noteworthy that the Middle Eastern orientation in this institute is overseen by Ilya Kusa, a convinced and active Assadist who, by all accounts, has Syrian Christian or Alawite roots (more precise information about his origins is not published). As a consistent Assadist, Kusa is naturally against «Islamists», including the Muslim Brotherhood (which is banned in Russia but still legal and has a significant presence in Ukraine), although it should be noted that he takes an anti-Zionist position on the Palestinian issue.
Given this proximity, it is not surprising that one of the examples used in the propaganda campaign to prove that an «inexperienced politician» can lead a country was Bashar al-Assad. This poster was not prepared or distributed directly by Zelensky’s team, but by a team working to discredit his main opponent, Petro Poroshenko. Nevertheless, the fact that his supporters feel comfortable comparing their leader to Bashar al-Assad is unlikely to be a coincidence, given the presence of experts like Kusa around Zelensky’s team and the pro-Russian, and therefore pro-Assad, sentiments that prevail among a significant portion of his voters.
Considering these factors, it is unlikely that rational Muslims in Ukraine who plan to participate in the elections will have any doubts about who they should not vote for.