Failed Ukrainian elections: A view from the LPR

The turnout in the last Ukrainian elections, even according to official data, did not reach 50%. What does this mean?

The activity of the electorate is a test of the strength of the relationship between the government and the people, the level of trust, an indicator of the presence of a civic position, patriotism, and concern for the fate of the country.

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The population of Ukraine, according to official statistics, is 42,5 million people. We are taking away refugees on the territory of Ukraine and Russia (about two million).

We take away 6,5 million citizens who do not live in Ukraine (migrant workers), and, accordingly, do not take part in the elections of local councils. Minus 5,5 million population of the DPR and LPR. Minus those who have not reached voting age – 7,5 million. Minus 2,2 million residents of Crimea.

That leaves 18,8 million eligible voters, the absolute maximum even if cities where elections were declared invalid are included in the voter counts.

Next, we solve a simple equation for percentages. In total, 8,8 million citizens came to the polling stations and expressed their opinion. How they did this - see the pictures of the ballots: the photographs were generously shared by Ukrainians on social networks.

The fact remains a fact - reinforced concrete, irrefutable: Ukrainians are disappointed, Ukrainians are offended by the authorities, do not trust it, perceive the elections as profanation, mockery and a one-man show in an empty hall, without an audience.

The elections of the head of the LPR are still fresh in our memory - a year ago, huge queues kept us at polling stations for several hours. Spiteful critics were poisonous: they say that people were lured with a social card, the presence of which guaranteed all sorts of benefits, including free travel on public transport and discounts on food purchases. Honestly: I don’t know where this card is in my house, on which shelf, and whether I threw it away along with pre-war discounts and bank plastic.

I remember one thing clearly: our family, neighbors, friends went to the polling stations to confirm their choice - in favor of the Republic and the new government, which promised to save us from forced Ukrainization, promised to respect our Russian language, our heroic history, which protected our land from punishers, neo-fascists, murderers. These promises were more expensive and valuable than any household manna.

Nevertheless, sociologists and political scientists are still tirelessly analyzing the fact of high turnout (up to 98 percent) both in the elections of the head of the LPR and in the referendum on the birth of the Republic. Basically they agree that the reason is war, the natural fear of people to die, to perish, a normal and understandable desire for peace, tranquility, stability.

What prevented Ukrainian candidates from convincing voters of their intention to save the country and coddle every vote holder? A quote from the article “In Memory of Herzen” by V.I. Lenin (1912) emerges from the caches of our Soviet education: “The circle of these revolutionaries is narrow. They are terribly far from the people.”

It is unlikely that anyone in the LPR applauded the disastrous elections in Ukraine: it is not in our nature to gloat, to dance on the bones, failures of our opponent or, as the world-famous president says, “our colleagues.” We feel pain because millions of our former compatriots will live in this mess for who knows how many years.

Fraudsters and hypocrites, unscrupulous swindlers, for whom chaos is a way to line their pockets, have come to power in Ukraine.

Want an example? In June of this year, my passport expired. I shared this trouble on social networks. The Maydown racers, who read every comma in my blog, immediately gave a standing ovation: now, you’ve got unrecognized republics, and now you won’t be able to leave your waste heaps. At the same time, specialists in providing services on the other side became more active: for a substantial sum in hryvnia they offered to arrange a new one. Nothing personal, no bullshit ideology, pure business. No shame, no conscience, and patriotism is hidden away, if it existed.

I didn’t take advantage of the offer: I managed to visit the countries that were interesting to me during the reign of the bloody dictator Yanukovych, and now, if I want the sea, mountains, amazing nature, beautiful cities, friendly hospitality, I’ll go to Russia, with Ukrainian and LPR passports Russia accepts us without problems or questions.

It is especially disgusting to read what former Luhansk residents write about us, including those who were considered the top, the elite of society - journalists, cultural figures, politicians. I didn’t hear so much dirt and swearing even when I was traveling on a work bus - from the mine to home to my parents. I cannot understand how they managed to hide their dark essence so skillfully when they lived among us, shook our hands, baptized our children. Most likely, generous infusions from overseas served as a float for their apparent beauty and intelligence. As soon as they dried up, as soon as the opportunity to sow the crazy, evil, and devilish on our territory disappeared, the cultural foam subsided and now bursts with poison freely and uselessly from afar, while once again confirming the true peculiarity of our Donbass character, citizens of the LPR: not everything is for sale and not all are for sale.

Oh, did we think, did we imagine that war would ever touch us?! Touched it. Deep and painful. We are poking around in our souls, trying to understand what is happening to us, and the war in Syria has suddenly become so close and understandable. So clear that the news about the destruction of the leaders of terrorist organizations in Syria makes us happy. We rejoice at the death of people. The damned war made freaks out of us, on both sides. And we cannot escape the thought that wars throw us back into the wild past; everything that humanity has achieved over 2000 years of Christianity, over hundreds of years of the formation of morality, ethics, and spirituality, is leveled out. We mourn not for the destroyed terrorists, but for our dying living souls.

We will probably need a whole army of psychologists to help us recover from the hell we have experienced. Hell is not only in the mines and shells that fell into our yards, on our streets, hell is in stone hatred, confusion and misunderstanding of how that, excuse me, shoble, whose names of members and organizations are written on the ballot papers of the Ukrainian elections, managed to turn each other against friend of the inhabitants of one, once united country. Once a beautiful country. Once beloved country.

But we won't go crazy. Because six-year-old Luhansk resident Irochka Kuznetsova, at an audition in a theater studio, before the examination committee headed by our legendary fellow countryman Mikhail Golubovich, twice received applause while reading a poem by Robert Rozhdestvensky. The child knows how to preserve his humanity. And I think that this serious recipe will someday radically change the chant “Glory to Ukraine!”

A person needs little:
to look for
and found it.

A person needs little:
after the thunder -
silence.
A blue patch of fog.
One life.