Zakharchenko
Alexander Zakharchenko, the legitimately elected representative of DPR.
Following Ukraine's parliamentary elections on October 26, the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics voted for their own leaders and lawmakers of their respective local parliaments on Sunday, November 2.

The voter turnout was high, according to foreign observers from Russia, South Ossetia, Serbia, Montenegro, Israel, France, the United States and other countries.
Foreign observers monitoring elections in Ukraine's self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic mark a high voter turnout at polling stations which opened at 8 am, Moscow time.

"We have just visited a polling station that was filled to capacity. My first impression is that people show huge interest in the elections," Manuel Ochsenreiter from Germany told TASS.
One example of the interest showed in the elections is a group of about 20 people that arrived at the Luhansk's polling station half-an-hour before it opened.

One of the observers of the November 2 elections said that there were no violations as of yet and that the elections are proceeding calmly.

There were even polling stations set up in Russia for refugees that have fled from the Western-backed junta government in Kiev and people were also given the opportunity to vote via the internet.

Donetsk elections
© Alexey Slavniy/TASSDonetsk citizens queuing outside one of the polling stations during the elections
The response from the EU was, as expected, to denounce the elections as illegitimate. The following is what the chairman of the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs had to say:
Elmar Brok said the elections were being held in violation of Ukrainian legislation, were at variance with the Minsk protocol and were aimed at undermining a peace process in the eastern region Donbass
Newly elected prime minister of Donetsk Alexander Zakharchenko said such claims were invalid by pointing out that
"It was said there [in the Minsk protocol] that we have the right to hold our own elections. The date was not specified," Zakharchenko said at a press conference Sunday, adding that the elections held in the republic "do not contradict the Minsk agreements", which have been fully fulfilled by the DPR.

According to Zakharchenko, DPR is open for dialogue with Kiev and is waiting for "adequate action" on the part of the Ukrainian leadership.

The Minsk protocol, signed September 5 by the Contact group on the Ukrainian crisis envisages a ceasefire and suggests, among other things, that Ukraine should adopt a law on granting special status to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and ensuring early elections of the heads of the self-proclaimed republics.
Poroshenko, in one of his bouts of hysteria, said the election was a violation of a September 5 truce deal, calling them "pseudo-elections that terrorists and bandits want to organise on occupied territory."

The Western-backed coup government in Kiev decided to launch a criminal investigation against the elections despite them being sanctioned by the Minsk peace deal, claiming that the elections contradicted the constitution and resembled "a power grab".
On Sunday, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said on Facebook that it had launched a criminal case into holding elections in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics.

"The criminal case has been launched under Part 1, Article 109 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (actions aimed at forcibly changing or overthrowing the constitutional order or seizing power)," the Security Service said in a report.
Never mind that it was they themselves who had earlier forcibly changed and overthrew the constitutional order and seized power, with a little help from their friends in the U.S./NATO/EU.

Alexei Karyakin, the chairman of the LPR People's Council responded by saying that they've gotten used to the Kiev regime not being right in the head, while the Prime Minister of the Donetsk People's Republic Alexander Zakharchenko responded by announcing that the republic's authorities would launch a criminal case into genocide by Kiev forces.

In central Kiev, some 200 people gathered to protest against the elections, carrying Ukrainian and NATO flags, as well as flags of the Right Sector.

As if that wasn't enough, the Ukrainian 'government' tried to subvert the elections by sending in armed bandits and blocking traffic to the region.
Two subversive groups, which attempted to wreck elections in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), have been neutralised in the Ukrainian eastern city of Donetsk, DPR Central Election Commission head Roman Lyagin said on Sunday.

"Two subversive and reconnaissance groups operate in the DPR territory. We neutralised two groups in Marinovka and Yelenovka. They were armed with heavy weapons," he said.

Lyagin said the Ukrainian authorities actively prevented the elections by blocking off traffic to the former Donetsk region. "All roads to the DPR territory have been blocked off by Ukrainian security forces," he said.
The EU had already condemned the Russian plans to recognize the November 2 elections, despite having supported Kiev's parliamentary elections, which were marked with political infighting, extremely low voter turnout, intimidation and assassination attempts. Basically the people of Ukraine had to choose between neo-Nazis and oligarchs.

Image
© RIA Novosti / Valery MelnikovVoting in Lugansk People’s Republic.
Unlike the hypocrites in the West, Russia will recognize the results of Donetsk and Lugansk elections and considers them as a positive step towards resolving the situation in Ukraine. Russia has also said that it does not see the elections as a threat to the peace process:
Early last week, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview to Izvestia daily and Lifenews that Moscow will recognize the results of the elections in Ukraine's self-proclaimed republics.

"The elections taking place on November 2 in Donetsk and Lugansk are very important for the legitimization of their authority," Lavrov said, noting that such elections are an important constituent of the Minsk peace agreements between Kiev and the self-proclaimed republics.

"We expect elections to take place as previously agreed," Lavrov said, "and, naturally, we will recognize the results. We look forward to the free expression of the will of the people and that no external forces will try to disrupt them," Russia's foreign minister added.
Despite the threats and feet-stomping from the West and Kiev, more than one million people stood in lines in cold temperatures to cast their votes yesterday, in elections that foreign observers reported to be fully democratic process with no violations:
International observers said the elections in the self-proclaimed republics followed democratic standards, adding that they saw no violations during the process.

An MP from the Upper Chamber of Italy's Parliament, Lucio Malan, acting as an observer at the elections in Donetsk, told RT that people "were not influenced in any way" during the vote.

"The prevention of double or triple voting appeared to be good, up to international standards" he added.

"What was possible for us to see and what we witnessed is that they fit completely into generally accepted democratic electoral standards," Manuel Ochsenreiter, a German observer in Lugansk, told RT."What was really impressing - the masses of people at the polling stations, standing sometimes for hours just to put their vote, to express their political will."

"First I believe the elections followed international standards of democratic elections. I was very impressed with the enthusiasm and the vigor with which the people went to the polls to express their opinion," US Senior Attorney Frank Abernathy, an observer in Lugansk, told RT.
Even before the results were in, it was clear who the people of Donetsk and Lugansk had chosen to represent them. Both Aleksander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky were the political and military leaders of their respective republics since they declared their independence from Ukraine in May 2014, following the Western-backed fascist coup d'état in Kiev. Unwilling to bend their rights and freedoms to the neo-Nazi puppets, they have since been defending their people from the all-out war that Kiev declared against the ethnic Russians of East Ukraine.
The results, as reported by Vestnik Kavkaza: According to preliminary studies, over 70% of the population voted for Alexander Zakharchenko, followed by Alexander Kofman and Yuri Sivkovenko. 60% voted for Zakharchenko's Donetsk Republic Movement, followed by Free Donbass with 25% of votes, TASS reports.

50% of the ballot sheets have been processed in Donetsk and 30% in Luhansk.

Igor Plotnitsky got 63.17% of the votes, Oleg Akimov heading the Federation of Trade Unions got 15.95%, businessman Victor Penner got 10.31%. Luhansk Healthcare Minister Larisa Ayrapetyan got 8.36%. The Peace to Luhanshchina Movement got 69.18% of the votes, the Luhansk Economic Union 24.07%, the People's Union 4.96%.
Who is Alexander Zakharchenko? Back in August, Paul Craig Roberts had high praise for Zakharchenko after watching him handle the press conference held with Russian and western media, as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Donetsk National Republic:
You will be impressed with the ease with which Zakharchenko handles the ignorant and corrupt Western media representatives, and your sides will burst with laughter at his reply to the media question: "Are there regular Russian military units fighting on your side?"

The British and American journalists were the most stupid, as we already knew. You will die laughing at the response to the question, "why did you parade the prisoners."

This person Zakharchenko puts to shame every politician in the US, Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, all of the puppet politicians of the American Empire. If only the United States had people of the character and quality of Zakharchenko.

Now that Zakharchenko has revealed himself and made mincemeat of the Western media, he will be demonized and misrepresented. So use this opportunity to see for yourself who has integrity and character.
The video below describes how Zakharchenko and his team were able to put together an army and organize all resources in short course, to defend his unarmed compatriots and territory when it was necessary to do so, while the rest of the world was turning a blind eye. Compare that with the way police and government treat their own people in the West.

The people of Donetsk have chosen their leader wisely!


A full transcript of the conference can be found here: Donetsk People's Republic press conference: "Every 30-50 years, the West invades us"

And one last, but important, bit about these elections that none in the Western media dared mention is how utterly ridiculous it is that Kiev is questioning - prohibiting even - East Ukraine's right to self-determination and independence, given that the Ukrainian Supreme Council (Verkhovna Rada) still has on their website the Ukrainian Declaration of Independence proclaimed as a direct consequence of the coup that took place in the USSR. Here's a rough translation by SOTT:
RESOLUTION BY UKRAINIAN SSR PARLIAMENT
ON THE INDEPENDENCE OF UKRAINE


(Bulletin of the Supreme Council (BSC) 1991, No. 38, p.502)

Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic decrees:

[to] Proclaim on August 24, 1991 Ukraine as an independent democratic state.

With the proclamation of independence in force in the territory of Ukraine only its Constitution, laws, decrees and other legislative acts of the Republic.

On December 1, 1991 to hold national referendum to confirm the act of independence.

Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian SSR L. Kravchuk Kyiv,
August 24, 1991 N 1427-XII

ACT OF DECLARATION OF UKRAINE INDEPENDENCE
ON THE INDEPENDENCE OF UKRAINE

Based on the mortal danger that was looming over Ukraine in the light of /as a consequence of/ a coup in the USSR on 19 August 1991,

- Continuing a thousand-year tradition of the state in Ukraine

- Based on the right to self-determination, as provided in the UN Charter and other international legal instruments,

- Making the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic solemnly declares independence of Ukraine and the creation of the independent Ukrainian state - UKRAINE.
And that is exactly what the Novorossiyans are doing right now, and for the same reasons. History repeats itself indeed, and not always according to the wishes of the psychopaths in power that try to rule and control everything. It will be interesting to see what they will try to do next...