RT | May 11, 2014
The referendum is in full swing in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Lugansk regions, seeking independence from the central government. Local self-defense forces boosted security, fearing that Kiev could stage provocations to disrupt the self-determination vote.
Turnout at the referendum is exceptionally high, the head of the Central Election Commission of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic,” Roman Lyagin, told Interfax.
“The turnout is not just high, it’s off the charts,” Lyagin said. “People are queuing up at polling stations, and election commissions are working at full capacity.”
In Lugansk, 22 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots two hours after the polls opened, a leader of the city’s self-defense forces, Vasily Nikitin, told RIA Novosti.
In Mariupol, recovering from Friday’s deadly clashes, only eight polling stations have been opened, according to the coordinator of the central election commission of the “Donetsk People’s Republic”, Boris Litvinov. Those willing to vote have to wait for their turn in huge queues.
Almost simultaneously with the opening of polling stations, sounds of shooting and artillery fire were heard on the outskirts of Slavyansk, in southeast Ukraine’s Donetsk region, RIA Novosti reported, citing its correspondent in the area.
Slavyansk already witnessed mortar shelling of its outskirts by Ukrainian forces on the eve of the referendum. In the embattled city the stations will close at 15:00 GMT for security reasons.
Some 1,471 polling stations in Lugansk region and around 1,500 in Donetsk region opened their doors for voters at 8:00 local time (5:00 GMT) and will close at 22:00 (19:00 GMT). Security has been tightened around them.
“We sent additional self-defense units to polling stations and also to the most important social institutions,” a Lugansk self-defense leader, Aleksey Chmilenko, told Interfax. “So far everything is normal, there are no incidents.”
RT’s Paula Slier, currently in Donetsk, reports that Roman Lyagin, chair of the central election commission in the region, believes that a provocation has been planned and says that anti-government activists are ready for it.
An attempt at provocation was registered in Lugansk, where a group of people tried to take away ballot papers from voters, a representative of the city’s self-defense forces, Vasily Nikitin, told RIA Novosti. He said the attempt to disrupt voting was foiled and the incident is being investigated.
Citizens of the two southeastern regions of Ukraine are being asked if they “support the Act of state self-rule” of Donetsk People’s Republic or Lugansk People’s Republic. The election commission officials explained that the people are not choosing between staying within Ukraine and joining Russia, as widely reported, but instead are asked to support regions’ right for political self-determination.
Over 3 million ballot papers were printed for Donetsk region. All in all, the organizers spent about 20,000 hryvnas preparing for the vote in Ukraine’s industrial region, the heart of the country’s coal-mining. “The referendum will be considered valid whatever voter turnout will be,” Roman Lyagin, the head Donetsk election commission told reporters on Saturday.
In Donetsk, western observers are not present at the polling stations, commission officials said, as nobody expressed willingness to oversee the vote in the turbulent region. “We did not refuse anyone, there were no applications,” Lyagin said, adding though that over 470 international journalists are accredited in Donetsk.
Some 30 international observers are monitoring the voting in Lugansk region, where some 1.8 million are expected to take part in the referendum. “According to a survey, 83% of Lugansk residents are ready to support the Act of state self-rule of the People’s Republic of Lugansk,” said Igor Shakhov, the head of the local election commission.
Security measures have been increased on the day of the historic vote with self-defense units in both regions preparing to thwart any attempt by Kiev’s military and paramilitary forces to disrupt the vote and prevent provocations by radicals at the polling stations.
The referendums, announced back in March, are going ahead as planned despite Russian President Putin’s call on pro-federalization activists to postpone them due to the deteriorating and unpredictable security situation in Ukraine.
The Kiev government as well as many western countries, including the US, France and Germany are calling the referendums “illegal” and urge dialogue between all conflicting parties in Ukraine, at the same time showing no readiness to stop the punitive military operation in the east of the country.
If a majority of voters answer “yes” on Sunday the regions will gain full moral right to officially state they do not accept what is happening in the country, anti-coup protesters say. The combined population of Donetsk and Lugansk industrial regions, rejecting the legitimacy of the coup-installed Kiev authorities, stands at about 6.7 million in a country of 45 million.
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