You can hold voting for a referendum? But no presidential election? Contradictory but whatever.
Furthermore Zelensky said that Russia should be invited to the next peace summit in November. No way he'll negotiate sensibly and it will still be for Ukraine's PR.
The majority of the world today says that Russia must be represented at the second summit, otherwise we will not achieve meaningful results,” he said, adding “since the whole world wants them to be at the table, we cannot be against it.”
https://www.rt.com/russia/601950-ukraine-russia-peace-talks-zelensky/
Clownsky's just adjusting his tone to retain the western audience imo.
If it will be a fair election, I'm curious to see what they will do if it will show that many people are willing to concede territory to Russia.
I think at this point even Zelensky must know that Ukraine can't win. The referendum could be a face-saving (and life-saving) way for him to negotiate some sort of compromise with Russia.