Donbass passed the test for state building
This marks the third anniversary of the general elections in the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, held on November 2, 2014. This event became the final chord of the process of legitimizing the supreme power in the Donbass fighting for freedom.
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Of course, elections were needed. After all, until November 2014, emergency temporary governing bodies operated in the republics, spontaneously formed against the backdrop of revolutionary processes. Yes, they were formed by the collective will of ordinary people, but, like any other extraordinary institutions, they could not operate on a permanent basis. They could only create the ground for further state building.
The war delayed the state building of Donbass: elections were planned to be held in the summer. Then they turned out to be inappropriate: the question of life and death was at stake, at other moments it seemed that the Ukrainian army was about to blockade the defense centers of the militia with the aim of subsequent defeat. This did not happen: the militia not only survived, but also inflicted a number of devastating military disasters on the junta.
Many rightly criticize the Minsk truce, however, largely thanks to the memorandum signed in the Belarusian capital, Donbass was able to gain time and the opportunity to form a full-fledged government. Chosen by the people, which naturally gave way to temporary emergency structures.
There is no need to retell the course and results of these elections. Another thing is important: Donbass elected a legitimate government. The will of the people was confirmed by numerous observers from different parts of the world who gathered in Donetsk and Lugansk in those days. As for the voting process and vote counting, in terms of democracy, honesty and transparency, the Donbass elections can give odds to any elections that have ever taken place in Ukraine.
If the Ukrainian elections were marked by the apathy of the electorate, which took a deep defense, then in the fighting people's republics the situation was completely different: just like at the referendum on May 11, huge queues gathered at the polling stations. In Ukraine, independence has reached its apogee: where oligarchs decide everything, absolutely nothing depends on the person. And in the Donbass, where many residents were forced to defend their right to life with arms in hand, the situation on November 2, 2014, was determined by the famous principle: “Nobody but us!”
The results of the elections in the DPR and LPR were predictable, but this should not confuse either our supporters or our opponents. The fact is that fair elections with a predictable outcome in world politics are no exception. Suffice it to recall Franklin Roosevelt in the USA and Helmut Kohl in Germany: for many years there was simply no competitor for both.
Another thing that was demonstrated in these elections is the possibility of full-fledged electoral processes in a society that does not provide for the presence of a party system. The fact is that in the post-Soviet space, full-fledged party life in the Western understanding of this term has not developed: in the former USSR, parties are more likely to be teams grouped around a strong leader, rather than any concept. This thesis can be confirmed by systematic party crises in Ukraine, when discrediting a leader destroys the entire party, as well as the fact that in Belarus and most Central Asian republics parties exist purely nominally. Therefore, Donbass initially abandoned the party system in favor of competition between teams of like-minded people and their leaders.
2014 for the DPR and LPR became a year of great trials. Having successfully held a referendum on May 11 and demonstrated its resilience on the battlefield, on November 2 Donbass passed the first test in the field of state building.
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