The DPR head stressed that primaries "are in no way
in violation of the Minsk Agreements, since they are purely preliminary".
DONETSK/LUGANSK, October 2. /TASS/. Primary election
will be held in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR
and LPR) for the first time on Sunday. After the election, lists of candidates
for local government positions will be formed in accordance with the Minsk
Agreements.
DPR head Alexander Zakharchenko announced primaries back
in May, followed by LPR head Igor Plotnitsky.
The DPR head repeatedly stated that since the Minsk Agreements
had been reached, Kiev has not yet managed to coordinate the text of the law on
election in Donbass with representatives of DPR and LPR. Consequently, the
Verkhovna Rada has not adopted the law.
As a result, DPR and LPR had to postpone local election
several times while it was initially planned to be held at the end of 2015. The
decision to hold primaries was made in the conditions of persisting vagueness
of joint work with Kiev on developing a law on local election in Donbass.
Zakharchenko said primaries will help "on the one hand, to resolve our own
tasks on building a state system, and on the other hand, to show that
complaints made by the Ukrainian side are in fact worthless."
"The primaries will become a preliminary stage of
elections on our territories, a kind of ‘political drills’ ahead of possible
local election," he explained. "We will in fact use the same system
and the same procedures which are usually used during elections," he
added.
The DPR head stressed that primaries "are in no way
in violation of the Minsk Agreements, since they are purely preliminary and are
aimed at clarifying the prevailing attitudes and preferences of
residents."
LPR’s envoy to the Contact Group on the settlement of
the situation in Donbass Vladislav Deinego said that primaries "represent
the result of Ukraine’s unconstructive position." "When the
representatives of the ‘Normandy Quartet’ set a task for us to prepare Ukrainian
legislation in the shortest possible time for holding local election, the
Ukrainian side was trying to prolong this process as much as it could," he
said. "However, we are not going to stop. We need local government, that’s
why it is very important now to see the most popular leaders on our
territories. Primaries will be like a test in three administrative-territorial
districts," he noted.
In DPR, primaries will be held in nine districts of
Donetsk and settlements of Staromikhaylovka, Alexandrovka, Larino, as well as
in the town of Mospino. In LPR, primary election will be held in Lugansk,
Alexandrovsk and Yubileyny settlement.
Polling stations will be open from 8am until 8pm local
time.
Representatives of different countries will monitor the
election, including from Finland, Greece, Germany, Italy, South Ossetia, Czech
Republic. DPR’s interim election commission registered 1,043 observers for the
primaries, including 22 international observers. A total of 147 journalists
from 23 media outlets in Donbass, Russia, CIS (Commonwealth of Independent
States) and European Union applied for accreditation in DPR. No Ukrainian media
outlets applied for accreditation.
In LPR, foreign journalists and observers from 15
countries, including from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany,
Finland, Poland, Israel, and India, will monitor the process.
Kiev has spoken against primaries in Donbass. After a
session of the Contact Group, Kiev’s representative Darya Olifer wrote that
"Ukraine expressed concern over organization of the so-called primaries
that are being prepared in separate districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk
regions because such actions are in violation of the Minsk Agreements."
Ukraine’s envoy to the Contact Group’s political subgroup Olga Ayvazovskaya
described the primaries as "a fake process" which is destructive for
the Minsk talks and is aimed at undermining them.
Source: ITAR-TASS 02-10-2016
