Another ‘referendum’? Or just opinion-poll?

UKRAINE - In Brief 12 May 2014 by Dmytro Boyarchuk

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On May 11 separatists did organize the widely advertised ‘referendum’. Bulletins printed on common printers. Only few polling points (instead of few hundreds needed). No passports or other IDs needed to vote. Some cities are voting for Donetsk National Republic, some cities are voting for merging with Dnipropetrovsk region. That’s what was happening at the eastern region yesterday. At the morning media disseminated photos with people crowding at the polling points with comments that Donetsk is thriving for independence. Later it appeared that it was just a result of polling points’ shortage. For cities with few hundred thousands of inhabitants (like Mariupol) separatists organized only 4-5 polling points. As a result, Russian media received badly needed picture of crowds thriving to vote for independence. In reality observers report very low participation rate – less than 100 thousand participants for the region with 6.6 million inhabitants. Nevertheless, as in Crimea, separatists did not doubt to announce excellent results with 74.87% participation rates and 89.07% voting for independence of Donetsk National Republic. Interesting that counting the votes took only few hours and they were announced already late on May 11. Surprisingly, but after such ‘impressive success’ separatists decided to stay within Ukraine. So what for this show was organized? As we discussed, Odesa events appeared to be a very unpleasant surprise for Putin. Anti-Russian sentiments are really growing and Odesa demonstrated this trend clearly. Against this backdrop Putin lowered his tones and, according to activists’ reports, Russian saboteurs received an order to withdraw from Ukraine. Instead, M...