How the Russian Federation is preparing "elections" in the occupied territories of Ukraine

 

Elections to regional legislative assemblies, or the Pak Duma, as well as to municipal and village councils are scheduled in Russia for September 10 - the so-called one-vote day.

In the four regions of Ukraine that Russia attacked, occupied and "annexed" in the fall of 2022, Moscow also plans to hold the so-called voting. Unlike last year's hastily organized "referendums", this "voting" in the occupied territories will be held by Moscow in accordance with Russian electoral legislation. However, many exceptions had to be made for the occupied parts of Kherson, Zaporozhye, Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which are, from a legal point of view, the territory of Ukraine.

 

Ukrainian citizens vote

 

Russia began to actively distribute passports to residents of the self-proclaimed "DNR" and "LNR" already in 2019, and in the occupied regions of Kherson Oblast and Zaporozhye - in the summer of 2022. Since then, the occupation administrations have regularly reported on the success of the passportization campaign - that, according to the estimate of the Prime Minister of Russia Mikhail Mishustin, only in the period from October 2022 to May 2023, about 1.5 million Russian documents were issued in four regions.

However, this was apparently not enough to hold a "vote". For example, in the region of Zaporozhye, the local "election commission" recently reported on the printing of about half a million ballots. While at the beginning of the month, the occupying "Ministry of the Interior" reported 300,000 issued passports.

"The process of issuing passports to our citizens is proceeding rapidly, but there are certain problems with obtaining documents," Maria Zakharova, the so-called "head of the election committee" of the occupied Kherson region, said in a commentary for the Russian newspaper "Izvestia".

 

Thus, residents of the occupied regions will be able to "vote" in Russian "elections" using Ukrainian passports, identity cards or even driver's licenses, provided they can prove their registration in these territories. Residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions can present passports of the self-proclaimed "DPR" and "LNR", which have been distributed there since 2015, as well as military cards of the "people's militias" at the polling stations.

 

De-occupation is not an obstacle

 

After the "annexation" of the occupied territories to Russia, the Armed Forces of Ukraine managed to liberate a significant part of them. First of all, we are talking about the right bank of the Kherson region, liberated in November 2022.

However, in Moscow they still consider these territories "theirs", and the inhabitants - "Russian citizens". And therefore - they are offered to participate in "voting". For this purpose, the all-Russian "Mobile Voter" mechanism is being implemented, according to which Russian citizens can vote at polling stations, and not at the place of registration.

However, for this you need to personally apply to one of the so-called multifunctional centers, and therefore - go to Russia or the occupied territories. Therefore, the service will work more for those who left the liberated areas of Ukraine together with the Russian army. This method of voting was announced by the head of the occupation administration of the Kherson region, Volodymyr Saldo, registered in the regional center on the right bank.

So Saldo can vote in the "regional Duma elections" - he himself is running in the "elections" at the head of the "United Russia" party list. But the Kremlin decided not to hold elections in the so-called councils of the liberated settlements of the right bank. However, the "elections" for the city councils of Holaj Pristan and Olešok, from where the occupation administration was evacuated in early 2023 due to hostilities, will still be held.

Moreover, in the Donetsk region, they will "elect" deputies of the "Krasnoliman Municipal District", despite the fact that its center, the city of Liman, was liberated by the Armed Forces of Ukraine in October 2022.

 

"One day" drags on

 

Despite the fact that September 10 is officially declared the only day for voting in Russia, the "elections" in the occupied regions of Ukraine will drag on much longer. Russian election commissions offer their residents to vote and from September 8 to 9, mobile commissions will work these days, that is, it will be possible to "vote" simply from home, as during last year's "referendum".

Such decisions of the heads of the occupation "voting committees" were explained to "Izvestia" in early August by concern for the safety of voters. For the same reasons, in settlements close to the front line, "voting" will begin even earlier: in the Kherson region - on September 2, and in the other three regions - on August 31.

In Ukraine, this form of "voting" is called a guarantee of forgery. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine states in a report dated August 25 that, especially for this purpose, "persons who were brought from the territory of Russia and moved to the abandoned houses of local residents are appearing in Zaporozhye".

Kiev will not recognize the "results" of the Russian "voting" in the occupied territories. On August 9, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a resolution calling on foreign parliaments and governments, as well as international organizations, to do the same.

 

Mysterious lists

 

The Security Service of Ukraine considers active participation in Russian "elections" in the occupied territories as a manifestation of collaborative activity and treason, and they announce charges against "candidates" and "members of election commissions". Special Service spokesman Artem Dekhtjarenko noted that "a lot of work" is currently underway to investigate the upcoming "voting", however, he did not have time to answer DW's questions in detail before publishing this text.

Concerns about future persecution by the SBU or Ukrainian partisans, Konstantin Mazurevski, a member of the Central Election Commission of Russia, explained to Vedomosti as another feature of the "election process" in the "new regions", since four regions of Ukraine were occupied by Russia. The fact is that local "voters" were allowed not to publish lists of candidates for both "regional Dumas" and "municipal councils". Voters were offered to get acquainted with the lists of candidates, their biographies and other information directly at the "voting".

On August 25, the Russian CEC announced the completion of candidate registration.

 "There is competition in the elections in Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics, citizens have a choice for whom to vote for," said the head of the commission, Ela Pamfilova, as quoted by rosZMI.

Thus, 600 candidates will compete for seats in the "regional duma" of the Donetsk region, 336 in Luhansk, 220 in Zaporozhye, and 191 in Kherson. Several thousand more candidates are running for the "council" at a lower level.

 

The regional "election commissions" limited the data on the so-called candidates, who are subject to publication, on several lines: name, year of birth, number on the list, whether he is a foreign agent. However, it will be extremely difficult for voters to obtain this data.

From August 25, the decision to approve the lists of "candidates" for the "regional Duma" was announced only by the occupation "election committees" of the Donetsk Oblast and the Kherson Oblast. The texts of the decisions are available on the websites of the commissions of Zaporozhye and Lugansk, but not the lists themselves. No region published the lists of candidates for "local committees" two weeks before the so-called vote.