A few months ago a couple of officials from Lugansk People’s Republic broached the idea of my joining the International Election Observer team in LNR. It wasn’t because they consider me an unfriendly voice, but quite the contrary.
I live in LNR and want the country to have a chance to develop. That can only happen if the democratic process here works. It has to work better than in the US, which may not say much these days, but this brand new country was only born a few years ago. It’s still in the process of determining its civil law and foreign law.
LNR is in a civil war and the country fighting it is determined to tie its hands by taking away people’s right to representation. Ukraine is also murdering elected government officials when it has the opportunity.
Today, Ukraine and its little fat Nazi Dimka Yarosh are huffing about how fast they can retake the Donbass militarily.
If the elections in Donbass were illegal, why can’t Ukraine show that? Why won’t they even try the legal remedy they agreed to in Minsk I and Minsk II agreements?
Instead, Ukraine frightened some of the voters into staying home by threatening to hack the voter registration systems. Ukraine’s version of democracy is to destroy the lives of people they consider enemies who may never lift a hand against Ukraine.
A Ukrainian Diaspora spy handles Ukraine’s monsters and passes along their orders. Pravy Sektor’s Yarosh would lose too much money and possibly his freedom to not do what they said.
The voter turnout in LNR was 77%. DNR had an 80% turnout and if these figures don’t make you jealous, you clearly have no concept of democracy. The USA hasn’t even been in the same ballpark for voter turnout since 1900. That last time was 73%.
Ukraine may have driven the numbers up a little with their threats. It wasn’t because the people got scared. Ukraine’s threats made them angry. Angry enough that the front line towns had close to 100% voter participation despite being on the frontlines of an active war.
The truth is, this election was going to make or break LDNR. If voter turnout wasn’t there, the world would have taken it as people voted with their feet. But what happens now?
Over the next few articles we’re going to explore that. I had a chance to interview the foreign minister of LNR and some of the international election observers.
We are starting to work with customized video for Washingtonsblog and will be showcasing reports here from LNR.
This first video should give an idea of what’s going on in LNR right now, where we are going, and that some great reporting is coming up.
The audio isn’t great. We need to purchase a little equipment as we go but we have a great start.
Let me know your thoughts.