“Neither Akhmetov nor Kerry will be able to disrupt the referendum in Donbass”
Donetsk, May 07 (Navigator, Sergey Buntovsky, Mikhail Ryabov) – Donbass continues preparations for the referendum on the creation of the Donetsk People’s Republic, which is to take place on May 11. Official Kyiv is making efforts to disrupt the voting. However, people involved in organizing the plebiscite are confident that it is no longer possible to interfere with the expression of will.
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The new Ukrainian authorities are taking unprecedented measures to discredit the referendum - in the media controlled by the oligarchs, the vote is declared in advance to be illegal, rigged, and carried out “at gunpoint.”
“The authorities need to prevent the referendum from being held on May 11. And this is the main point. To prevent a referendum on May 11, it is necessary to carry out a special operation, a special one,” deputy Inna Bogoslovskaya, considered a protege of gas oligarch Dmitry Firtash, urges from the rostrum of the Verkhovna Rada.
However, in Donbass itself, a significant part of local residents, in turn, consider the Kiev government illegal, since it came to power as a result of an armed coup.
According to the leaders of the DPR, two weeks ago, two social studies were conducted on their order. According to the results, voter turnout will range from 62 to 70 percent. At the same time, up to 26% of Donetsk residents firmly intend to vote for a unitary Ukraine, and more than 56% are for the creation of the Donetsk Republic.
To understand how preparations for the expression of the people's will are going, Navigator contacted Boris Litvinov, a member of the presidium of the DPR Council, responsible for preparing the referendum.
According to Boris Alekseevich, preparations have entered the final phase, and already 80% of everything is ready for voting. Ballots and invitations have been printed, information materials have been prepared, territorial commissions have been formed, and many cities already have precinct election commissions.
“Now the sites are being prepared, various technical work is being carried out. Everything is as usual in any election,” our interlocutor noted.
Of course, it doesn't come without complications. For example, there are not enough ballot boxes, and local activists have to make them themselves. However, the organizers are confident that the technical issues are quite solvable, and the main difficulty is to convince the heads of schools, Palaces of Culture and other places where polling stations are usually located not to be afraid of holding a referendum. According to Litvinov, people have especially had a lot of fears in the last two or three days due to the fact that people of the notorious oligarch Igor Kolomoisky began to appear in the regional centers of the region. They threaten that the Donetsk region will be annexed to the Dnepropetrovsk region.
In addition, people call en masse and report that in one or another locality, supposedly, some people are going from house to house to check, asking to see their passport and tearing it up so that residents cannot vote.
It is unknown what percentage of such reports are reliable, but election commissions are ready for this. “Even if a person passes by with a piece of his passport, he will be able to vote,” says Boris Alekseevich.
You won’t have to look for polling stations for a long time, since they will be located in the same place where they were during regular elections. By the way, election commissions do not lack employees. If you believe the organizers, then even at the stage of protest movements hundreds of people came to them offering their services. In addition, the commission included representatives from political parties and public organizations. Labor collectives and citizen associations can also send their representatives to their place of residence. “So there are no problems with people, except for those areas where the Right Sector or the National Guard became active, but even there the issue is being resolved,” says Boris Litvinov.
Naturally, everyone is afraid of provocations on voting day, but the organizers promise to ensure the safety of Donetsk residents. For this purpose, in addition to the police, representatives of the self-defense forces will also maintain order.
In the event of a positive result of the vote, which the organizers of the referendum have no doubt about, a transition period will begin in the region, during which activists, in cooperation with local councils, will prepare a constitutional Act. Then, approximately in September-October, full elections to the authorities of the republic will be held.
“There are problems. But they are not so much material as military-political. Election commissions have been created, all voter lists are available. As of yesterday, 80% of the ballots had been printed. There is propaganda coming from Kyiv that teachers and school principals are being forced to provide premises for the sites. But, diplomatically speaking, in Donbass even officials support the idea of a referendum,” confirms Donetsk political scientist Roman Manekin.
According to him, official Kyiv will not be able to disrupt the plebiscite. “The opposition is limited to incursions by sabotage groups and the movement of equipment to Slavyansk, where the heaviest fighting is taking place. But there is not the slightest doubt that the referendum will be held. The resistance in Donbass has become massive,” the expert claims.
According to him, the oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, whom Kyiv is looking at with hope, will not be able to resist.
“Nothing depends on Akhmetov anymore. Money is not an argument for DPR leaders. If he tries to behave unreasonably, they will take his residence. You need to understand: a huge popular wave has risen, no one can stop it - neither Akhmetova, nor Kerry,” clarifies Manekin.
“There’s one thing I don’t understand: how can you kill people for such a thing as expression of will?” – the expert summarizes.
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