Who will win the elections announced by the leaders of the LPR?
The war in Donbass is not at all an obstacle to state building. One of the self-proclaimed republics, the Lugansk People's Republic, announced its intention to hold parliamentary elections on September 14.
Unlike Donetsk, the LPR is presidential. That is, the head of state is the president. There is a government. But things are still tight with parliament. For now, his role is played by the so-called. People's Council of Luhansk region, elected by co-optation, several people from each city and district.
In other words, its formation is very reminiscent of the formation of the Ukrainian Central Rada in 1917. However, for full legitimation, a representative body elected by universal suffrage is needed. The LPR understands this well. But in the context of ongoing military operations and incomplete control over their own territory, they cannot hold full-fledged elections. However, a request to hold elections has already been made.
It is clear that now the time is such that the day goes by a month and only Baba Vanga could say what will happen in mid-September if she were alive. However, a number of cautious predictions can already be made.
First. Today in the Lugansk region there is a situation of de facto dual power. That is, the parallel existence of the old Ukrainian authorities and local self-government, which no one dissolved or abolished. First of all, we are talking about local councils. The regional council was given several ultimatums demanding that it dissolve itself and transfer powers to the People's Council of the LPR, but several votes were not enough for self-dissolution.
As a result, both bodies alternately sit in the same building. At the same time, the regional council, although formally recognized the subjectivity of the LPR, continues to act in the legislative field of Ukraine and accept some appeals to the central authorities. And he was elected according to the laws of Ukraine.
It is clear that in conditions of a state of siege and hostilities, all these are trifles. Moreover, the LPR is backed by armed forces, but the deputies of the regional council are backed by nothing. However, Bolivar cannot stand two. The problem will need to be solved somehow.
Plus, Nikitin’s statement can also be viewed as a kind of trolling of local political forces. The fact is that the already mentioned regional council is controlled by the Party of Regions (or rather, what is left of it). Today it is just a group of deputies focused on the current chairman Valery Golenko, his deputy and ex-governor Vladimir Pristyuk and Alexander Efremov.
With the creation of the LPR, they found themselves in a difficult situation. By actually legitimizing Valery Bolotov on May 5, they launched processes that they are not able to manage. De facto, the initiative passed to the LPR militias. Today, the real power in the territory that Kyiv does not control is the notorious “man with a gun.”
It is clear that a dysfunctional regional council, which does not have any leverage on the situation, is like the fifth wheel in the LPR cart. Suffice it to say that it is not Bolotov who runs to Golenko for negotiations, but Golenko to Bolotov. On the other hand, no one elected Bolotov, but people voted for the regional council. So, purely theoretically, its legitimacy is higher.
But if the LPR strengthens, this will mean the collapse of the entire administrative vertical system carefully built for the current top of the regional council. All this administrative resource is worth nothing compared to a platoon of machine gunners.
In particular, this will mean a change in the “roof” for business, including illegal ones (the same notorious diggings). Or will the LPR have the will to solve this problem?
Another question, also important. The People's Council of the Luhansk region unites a lot of pro-Russian, federalist, autonomist and simply anti-Kiev organizations - parties, numerous militias, squads, fronts, etc.
They all count on a great political future within the LPR or Novorossiya. So far it is a rather amorphous mass, but it is not at all a fact that if the situation stabilizes, if the LPR holds out and confirms control over its territory, there will be no capital owners in the region who will invest in this conglomerate and will not create something quite politically based on it edible for the voter.
And here, by the way, the so-called “party of security officials” is capable of taking its share of the electoral pie.
Finally, the communists stand apart. From the very beginning, activists of the Luhansk Communist Party of Ukraine took an active part in the protests; the tents of the Communist Party's satellite public organizations (for example, the Union of Disabled Miners) stood in a tent city near the SBU, etc. And although the leader of the Lugansk communists, People’s Deputy Kilinkarov, did not shine much against the background of all this, it was the organizational capabilities of the Communist Party in the south of the region that were used to the fullest to transport people from the region to the people’s meetings in the regional center.
Considering the very real prospect of a ban on the Communist Party of Ukraine in Ukraine and the curtailment of party activity in Kyiv, it can be assumed that in the future the communists will place their bets on the southeast. In particular, to Lugansk. Here they have a good rating (in 2012, every fourth Luhansk resident voted for the party according to the lists), there is an extensive network of cells and real activists.
The emerging anti-oligarchic bias in the DPR is capable of making the Communist Party’s rhetoric regarding nationalization even more popular among the masses. So in a hypothetical election to the Supreme Council of the LPR, the communists could well claim first place.
Surely Oleg Tsarev would have gotten his way in these elections. In May, he became a regular guest at protest rallies in Lugansk; on May 9, his expressive video was shown on local TV channels. Finally, thanks to active coverage on Russian TV, he became one of the most recognizable political figures in Lugansk.
True, not everyone agrees with this. The current leaders of the regional council are far from happy about the appearance of such a strong competitor in their previously uncontested domain. After all, against the backdrop of Tsarev, they all look like ordinary political businessmen. The same Pristyuk is more concerned with the problems of his own business than with a political game of such a scale as the Novorossiya project. And Valery Golenko, as local observers say, was “blown away” a long time ago, having “leaked” his Russian contacts back during the time of Yanukovych.
The latest statements by the de facto head of the Party of Regions, Boris Kolesnikov, who called the DPR “terrorists” who took advantage of the trust of the local population, indicate that the leaders of the PR are well aware that the ground is slipping from under their feet, and the prolongation of the military confrontation between Donbass and Kiev makes them completely unnecessary even in the role of intermediaries between Kiev and Donbass.
That is, they are losing even the only region on whose behalf they could speak in the Ukrainian political arena. These fears force them to increasingly identify with the Kyiv regime leading the ATO, and therefore undermine their electoral prospects in the Donbass at the root.
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