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.
Assuming that the referendum will be fair, it would essentially be a referendum on surrender. Would the Ukrainian population vote in favour of this? They're losing and would benefit immensely from peace but nobody likes being run over by a foreign army, even if your own leaders are pricks and Ukrainian society has been seeping in fascist Endsieg-propaganda since long before the Russian intervention in the civil war.
And that is assuming that the vote will be fair, which can not be expected.
If anything, this referendum could end up as a morale booster to the pro-war camp and prolong the suffering rather than the beginning of a peace process.