Voting under bullets and shells

REM publishes a translation of the article by Verstka. The original text in Russian is available on the Verstka website: link.

One of the key problems for the organizers of elections in the occupied territories of Ukraine is – according to the sources of “Verstka” – to find people willing to participate in them. Most of the party primaries participants are either collaborators persecuted by the Ukrainian authorities for a long time or outright losers who failed to build a career in the government agencies of annexed Crimea and “mainland Russia”. The voting is scheduled for 8-10 September. At the same time, the authorities will try their best “to keep CPRF [Russian Communist party] representatives out of mandates” and insure against surprises.

May 10, 2014. Two dark-haired, unshaven middle-aged men are having a heated argument in front of the monument to Olshansky landing party in Nikolaev surrounded by a crowd of bystanders. A week ago the Trade Union House burned down in Odessa. Forty-two people died – mostly pro-Russian activists. The disputers were also considered pro-Russian and were members of Antimaidan, but the tragedy split them apart and sent them in different directions forever. One is named Sergey Veremeenko, the other Yuri Barbashov.

In a few months Veremeenko will leave for Donbass on the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Barbashov will lose his job and join the “People's Militia” of the so-called Luhansk Peoples Republic (LPR).

Here he will stay till the war starts. When Russian troops occupy Snigurovka, the only settlement in the Nikolaev region they could take, the former unemployed man will suddenly become head of the local occupation administration.

The Russian troops have soon lost Snigurovka, but Barbashov remained in the non-existent position of the head of the settlement. In this status, he is now officially running in the primaries for the legislative assembly of Kherson Region.

Barbashov is a typical “United Russia” nominee for the regional elections to be held in the annexed territories of Ukraine from September 8 to 10 this year. Russia wants to form its own legislative assemblies in the seized parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhe and Kherson regions.

No single-mandate candidates, no governors

Although the Russian authorities are striving to hold the elections according to Russian standards, it won’t be possible to organize the voting by the usual rules. “No one needs surprises. The task is simple: to show the all-people’s support for “United Russia” in the “new regions”. There must be as few deputies out of control as possible” – that’s how a source familiar with the Kremlin's actions in the annexed territories describes the setup for these elections to “Verstka”.

According to two political consultants working with the so-called “domestic political block” of the Russian Presidential Administration, the campaigns are “globally” curated by Boris Rappoport, Deputy Head of the Division of Operation of the State Council, and Alexander Sidyakin, head of United Russia's central executive committee. According to the sources of “Verstka”, “there is a hodgepodge of political consultants working in the field”. Representatives of the IMA-Consulting holding cooperate with the ruling party there.

The military actions affect this work. According to a political consultant, the election organizers were promised an “absolutely exorbitant fee” for their services “impossible to imagine in normal Russia”: “Half a million rubles [ca. 5 000 EUR] a month plus all the overhead expenses covered for a coordinator of one large or two small districts of the republic”. However, even very big money is not tempting enough for everyone. “Verstka” knows for sure that several political consultants have left the occupied territories “due to personal security reasons”.

To make sure that there are no surprises, the presidential administration together with the Central Election Commission (CEC) applies a whole range of “innovations” in the annexed territories:

The elections will be held in a reduced form – with tight deadlines for nomination and campaigning. They may be “postponed” any time if the Ukrainian “counteroffensive” unfolds to Russia's disadvantage. The amendments to the election legislation signed by Vladimir Putin on May 29 made it possible to hold elections under martial law in all “new regions”. In order to conduct the election campaigns, “the heads of these regions” sent corresponding official requests to the CEC, as required by the new regulations. After the “consultations” with the FSB and the Ministry of Defense the voting has been authorized. At the same time, in early July, Ella Pamfilova, Head of the Central Election Commission, declared at a meeting with Putin that the campaigns could be postponed in the event of a “sharp deterioration of the situation” (obviously meaning a major success of the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive).

Those remaining in the occupied territories will not elect the executive branch at all. “Heads of regions” and heads of municipal administrations are to be appointed by the legislative assemblies and local representative bodies, which should be elected in September. This approach is used in some regions of Russia: in most republics of the North Caucasus and in the northern autonomous districts - the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area, the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area, and the Nenets Autonomous Area. Heads of regions are appointed by parliaments there, while direct elections of municipal heads have been cancelled almost everywhere. On December 13 last year, Denis Pushilin, the “acting head” of the so-called Donetsk Peoples Republic (DPR), claimed that the elections of heads of municipalities would be held on the same day as the parliamentary elections. Now the sources of “Verstka” in the federal authorities claim that this “was not even in the plans”: “There would have been too many procedures to be done more complicated or changed beyond recognition. For example, candidates for heads of regions must collect signatures from municipal deputies in support of their nomination. But how can they do this if there are no municipal deputies in the new territories at the moment?”

All elections in the annexed territories will be held exclusively by party lists. This is in contrast to the changes going on throughout Russia for several years: more and more deputies get elected under the majoritarian system (in the polling districts) rather than proportional system (party lists). At the same time, the CEC did not officially publish information on the number of voters, which is crucial for non-parliamentary parties. In order to nominate their lists, they have to collect signatures of voters – and the number of signatures to be collected is calculated as a percentage of the total number of voters. According to the sources of “Verstka” in the Russian electoral system, the organizers decided to infringe the rights of “small parties” in such an obvious way “due to security reasons”. “It is unclear where those districts will be by September, the front is moving”. At the same time, local election commissions easily name the total number of polling stations that are being prepared for September. For example, in the “LPR” there will be 451 polling stations. “But the cancelation of elections at one or even a few polling stations is definitely less critical than the disappearance of an entire district”, explains a source of “Verstka”.

For similar reasons, the CEC and the Presidential Administration have even “seriously considered” the possibility of reducing the term of office for the representative bodies to be elected in September down to two years. But this idea was not implemented.

Famous collaborators, losers from the “mainland” and public sector workers

“United Russia” has already launched its primaries in all new territories. For example, 145 people have applied for the preliminary voting aimed at selecting candidates for the legislative assembly of the Kherson Region. Judging by the nominee identities, the ruling party has huge problems with recruiting really high-profile candidates.

The two largest groups, which make up more than 50% of primaries participants, are local collaborators and people who came to the annexed territories from Crimea and Russian regions. Apart from Barbashov already mentioned above, the “acting head” of Zaporozhe Region Yevgeny Balitsky and his number two, “mayor” of Melitopol Galina Danilchenko, are participating in the voting. She is known as the first official who openly cooperated with the Russian authorities after the start of the war.

Oleg Orus, the “deputy head of the administration” of Chernobaevka village, which became a meme because of numerous artillery attacks by the AFU on the local airbase actively used by Russian troops, is also running in the elections. Whereby Chernobayevka is under Ukrainian control since last November.

The “left-bank” officials from the territories which have been repeatedly evacuated are also participating in the primaries. For example, the “deputy head” of the “Kakhovka civil-military administration” Vadim Ktitor. Apparently, the “United Russia” is so understaffed that the “deputy prime minister” of the Kherson Region, Vitaliy Buliuk, applied for the preliminary voting together with his son, 28-year-old agrarian businessman Viktor.

Many candidates from Crimea and “mainland Russia” have one thing in common: they lack any notable career success in recent years. For example, Enver Abduraimov, who was expelled from the Crimean Tatar Majlis back in 2013 and was a member of the last Ukrainian convocation of the Crimean parliament, applied for the primaries. Abduraimov was never elected to the legislative bodies after the annexation, but this did not prevent him from systematically criticizing his fellow Tatars in the propaganda media for opposing the Russian authorities.

But despite of the understaffing, the organizers of the elections in the “new territories” don’t take each and every candidate for granted. According to two sources close to the leadership of the parliamentary parties, the organizers of the elections “have the task of minimizing the CPRF's representation” and ideally “providing it with zero mandates”. Although Gennady Zyuganov’s party positions itself as a consistent supporter of the war, “the CPRF's grassroots activism could become unmanageable” or even "an assembly point for disgruntled patriots a la Strelkov [Igor Girkin, former “Defense Minister of the DPR”, a harsh critic of Vladimir Putin and the Defense Ministry – “Verstka”]. Sources interviewed by “Verstka” who have worked with the Presidential Administration recall that the Communists “were not welcome” in the occupied regions since 2014. “Kirienko does not like the Communists; he fears that they might become a structure for bringing the real opposition together in the new territories. Zyuganov is not going to live forever; the “transit of power” has not been launched in the party, so no one knows what kind of people might “pop up” in its process". The organizers of the campaign also “have questions” to the “New People” who operate in the new territories, “poorly coordinating their actions with the authorities”.

Before the invasion, local voters in the Kherson and Zaporozhe regions sympathized with pro-Russian politicians, regularly supporting, for example, Viktor Medvedchuk's “Opposition Platform – For Life”. (OPFL)

How did these territories vote in the past?

The voting process defined for the elections in September is fairly new for all four Ukrainian territories annexed by Russia in the autumn. In the parts of Luhansk and Donetsk regions, which were basically torn away from Ukraine in 2014, major elections under Ukrainian rules have not been held since 2010. The first elections in the “DPR and LPR” after the emergence of these “people's republics” took place on November 2^nd, 2014. In both “republics” the authorities prohibited the creation of parties, so candidates were nominated from the “public movements”. Alexander Zakharchenko (killed in 2018) was nominated by the “movement” “Donetsk Republic” and “won” the elections in “DPR” with 78.93% of votes. The first head of the “LPR” Igor Plotnitsky “received” 77.04% of votes as a representative of the “movement” “Peace for Luhanshchina”. Representation in both regions' legislative assemblies was rather sparse: in addition to the “movements” officially representing the authorities, deputies from the “Free Donbass” and “Luhansk Economic Union” organizations were elected there. The “authorities” of both seized regions managed to organize voting in less than 50% of actually controlled territories.

In 2018 the last elections in the “republics” not recognized even by Russia went much more smoothly – in almost all of their territories, but with a similar result. In the “LPR” Leonid Pasechnik “became” head of the republic with a result of 68%, and in the “DPR” Denis Pushilin “got” 60% of votes. The balance of “forces” in the “parliaments” remained nearly unchanged. All this time, the municipal heads were not elected in both “republics”, but appointed by the republican leadership. And local representative bodies simply did not exist. “And this has also become one of the problems. In the 13 years since the last elections and 9 years of existence without local government, people simply don’t understand anymore where exactly they are delegated to. Not to mention the ordinary voters”, commented a political consultant who started working on elections in the so-called LPR, but soon left there “due to personal security reasons”.

In territories seized after February 24, 2022, the voting rules will also differ from those adopted in Ukraine. In July 2020, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine drastically reduced the number of municipalities in the country, thereby basically abolishing the entire administrative division system inherited from the USSR. As a result, only 136 of Ukraine's 490 districts remained. In October 2020, the last regional and local elections under Ukrainian law were held in the territories now occupied by Russian troops. The largest factions in the legislative assemblies of Zaporozhe (where elections had been held a year earlier) and Kherson regions were formed by deputies from the pro-Russian party (banned shortly after the outbreak of war) “Opposition Platform - For Life!”, whose key figure was Viktor Medvedchuk. In Kherson Region, OPFL won 15 out of 64 seats (while the presidential party “Servant of the People” held 11 seats), and in Zaporozhe Region - 23 out of 84 seats (18 seats held by “Servant of the People”). In the municipal elections, the OPFL has shown even more impressive results: the party's representatives won in almost all districts not only in Zaporozhe and Kherson regions, but also in the parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions controlled by Ukraine. The OPFL was less successful in mayoral elections. However, there were some achievements on this level as well - for example, Oleg Azarov, a representative of the OPFL, became head of administration in Konstantinovka (currently one of the AFU's stronghold bases in Donetsk Region).

The current heads of collaborationist administrations did not enjoy comparable support. For example, Melitopol, the current “temporary capital” of Zaporozhe Region, was controlled by the local “Bloc of Serhiy Minko”, the city's former mayor and a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada. One of the largest local businessmen and the current “head” of the region, Yevgeny Balitsky, was a Verkhovna Rada deputy from the “Opposition Bloc”, an ally of the OPFL, until 2019. And Volodymyr Saldo, who leads the occupation administration of the Kherson Region, lost the Kherson mayoral election in 2020; the “Volodymyr Saldo Bloc” has gained only 5% in the election to the regional parliament.

In the Russian-controlled territories, the municipal reform of 2020 was canceled. As a result, the authorities of 16 municipal districts in Zaporozhe Region, 13 districts and five cities in Kherson Region, and 28 municipalities in almost fully occupied “LPR” are to be elected.

Not a single Ukrainian elected leader of a major settlement that was in office at the time of the region's occupation has cooperated with the Russian authorities. Moreover, representatives of the FSB and the Russian Armed Forces have been repeatedly accused of kidnapping and strong-arming the remaining Ukrainian officials to cooperate. The Ukrainian mayor of Melitopol Ivan Fedorov is a famous example: he returned from “Russian captivity” and became one of the main Ukrainian newsmakers reporting on the situation in the south of Zaporozhe Region.

“The elections in Crimea in 2014 were an ordinary Russian election campaign compared to these territories. Administrative resources, domination of our candidates, no underground movements and partisanship”, said a political consultant who worked in the first “Russian elections” in Crimea in 2014. According to him, “all that was required of political consultants in Crimea” was to accustom “polling site commissions and some TECs [Territorial Election Commissions] to the fact that the target numbers must be met” and that “these numbers are much higher than those recommended” by the officials in the Ukrainian Crimean elections.

Ukraine's response

Anyone participating in the elections in the occupied territories faces criminal penalties from the Ukrainian authorities. The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has introduced criminal liability for the organization and participation in Russian elections in summer 2022, shortly before the referendums on annexation of the occupied territories. For this purpose, the deputies introduced a separate article 111(1) “Collaborationist Activity” into the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The paragraphs 5 and 6 of this article imply imprisonment up to 10 and 12 years respectively – not only for organizing the elections but also for public calls for participation in Russian elections. And up to 15 years imprisonment for “conducting political events in cooperation with the aggressor state”. SBU is responsible for investigations into these charges. Even according to Ukrainian judges, these new articles have many overlaps with already existing articles of the Criminal Code criminalizing cooperation with occupation forces.

These articles were first applied by the SBU after the referendums in September 2022 on annexation of the territories seized by the Russian Armed Forces. On September 23^rd, one day before the referendum, the SBU reported to have identified 1.500 people involved in the organization of and participation in the referendums. A few days later, the service reported that dozens of criminal cases had been opened against the heads of occupation administrations and referendum commissions. However, they have not yet been placed at the disposal of the Ukrainian authorities. Judging by the official publications of the Security Service of Ukraine and Ukrainian courts, only a few investigations have reached a face-to-face trial.

One of the most notorious cases is the sentence of Lubov Zhovba, former director of the cemetery in the Novoaleksandrovskoye village located in the liberated right-bank part of the Kherson Region. She was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment by Odessa's Primorsky Court for organizing the referendum. Together with Zhovba, three other participants of that vote were convicted. The SBU did not report any other actual sentences. Representatives of the Ukrainian authorities define participation in the current regional elections also as collaborationism in the media. However, they do not explain in detail what degree of involvement in the elections would be considered a crime.

Experts point out that – no matter the vote outcome – it won’t be possible to call the result a new local government. “It’s difficult to use the word “elections” for the procedure that will take place in these territories. After all, the basic principles of conducting elections are clearly violated: there is currently martial law in effect, the combat still goes on, and shells are flying. Under these conditions, it is impossible to ensure freedom of assembly and agitation, as well as to protect any rights of both candidates and voters”, says Stanislav Andreychuk, an expert of “Golos” movement. He believes that the protection of voters' rights at extraterritorial polling stations planned to be opened for refugees from the occupied territories, for example, in Voronezh and Omsk regions “will be even worse”. “There will even be no party representation in the polling site commissions, after all”, he concludes.