#Ukraine: #Crimeapoll #opens with #landslidevote #expected for #unionwithRussia Russian TV reports #hugeturnout for #referendum on union with Russia, #dismissed in #west as #illegitimate and #illegal Shaun Walker in Simferopol and Alec Luhn theguardian, Sunday 16 March 2014 08.21 GMT Could not load plugins: File not found Link to video: Polling begins in Crimea’s referendum Voting is under way in Crimeas referendum, which is expected to deliver an overwhelming majority of votes for union with Russia but has been denounced internationally as illegitimate and illegal. Voters on the peninsula have been given two options to choose from at the referendum, which has been organised in a matter of days. One calls for union with Russia, while the other offers increased autonomy within Ukraine. There is no option to retain the status quo. Russian state television was reporting a huge turnout for the referendum and claimed there were no armed men at the polling stations. State news agency Interfax quoted the observer Enrique Ravello, a nationalist deputy in Spains parliament, as saying he had seen an unprecedented turnout, adding: Theres no coercion, pressure on people. The referendum is being held peacefully, freely and openly. According to polling by German research group GfK, 70% of Crimeans who want to participate in the referendum plan to vote to join Russia, while only 11% plan to vote to remain part of Ukraine. Crimean leaders have made no secret of the fact that they expect a landslide victory for joining Russia, and posters across the region call on voters to make the correct choice. Ethnic Russians make up a slight majority in Crimea, which was part of the Russian republic within the Soviet Union until 1954, but minority populations of Tatars and Ukrainians are less enthusiastic about the vote and many Tatars have said they will boycott the poll. In Kiev, the Ukrainian parliament has called the vote illegitimate and voted to dissolve the Crimean parliament, a decision that has been ignored on the ground, where Russian troops and armed local self-defence units remain in control. The Crimean referendum website was down on Sunday. Previously, organisers claimed the site had been subject to a DDoS hacker attack originating in the University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne in the US. Saint Petersburg has closed down its main street for an automobile rally in support of the Crimean referendum organised by conservative parties. On Saturday, Moscow was the scene of huge competing rallies for and against Russian intervention in Ukraine. At least 10,000 people took part in an anti-intervention rally, at the end of which was read a resolution calling for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Crimea and the end of Russian interference in Ukraines internal affairs. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, initially said there was no chance that Russia would absorb Crimea, but the rhetoric in recent days has changed, and the de facto leader of the peninsula, Sergei Aksyonov, told the Guardian on Saturday that he had received signals from Moscow that Crimeas petition would be accepted. This week, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Russia will respect the expression of the will of the Crimean people in in the upcoming referendum. With the influx of Russian troops and the seizure of power by Aksyonov, who was previously a marginal figure in Crimean politics, many in the west hregard events in Crimea as part of a carefully choreographed Russian plan. Aksyonov, however, insisted his rise was a response to a genuine threat from far-right Ukrainian nationalists in Kiev after the events that led to President Viktor Yanukovych being toppled last month. The first thing they should have done was to have wide-ranging consultations and invite people from Russian-speaking regions to work together. Instead all we got was threats, he said. We had no other option. Should we wait here for people to come here with arms? The situation in Crimea remains tense, with gangs of local militia patrolling the streets and Russian troops surrounding Ukrainian military installations in the region. Aksyonov on Saturday again repeated Moscows line that the men were not Russian soldiers, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Late on Saturday night, about two dozen heavily armed men, possibly local Crimean special forces, entered the Hotel Moscow in Simferopol, where many foreign journalists are staying, and occupied several floors. Some claimed it was a training exercise while others said they were searching for an armed criminal. They departed without a shot being fired. No major international organisations are monitoring the vote, but a group of observers from 23 countries – a mixture of anti-western ideologues and European far-right politicians – have arrived of their own accord and gave a press conference in Simferopol on Saturday evening. Bela Kovacs, an MEP from the far-right Hungarian party Jobbik, said everything he had seen on Saturday conformed to international standards and he expected the vote to be free and fair. Many of the observers railed against the west and said that by recognising Kosovo, the west had opened a Pandoras box and had to accept the result in Crimea. What is sauce for Kosovos goose is certainly sauce for Crimeas gander, said Serbian-American writer Serge Trifkovic. When asked if observers had been paid to attend, he said that if he were looking for money he would have approached the CIA. The observers, he said, were as poor as church mice. Kovacs said there were no British observers at the referendum. The BNPs Nick Griffin really wanted to come, but we persuaded him not to, he said. The polls close at 8pm local time (6pm GMT), and the first results are expected two and a half hours later. theguardian/world/2014/mar/16/ukraine-crisis-crimea-referendum?guni=Network%20front:network-front%20main-3%20Main%20trailblock:Network%20front%20-%20main%20trailblock:Position2
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 13:16:00 +0000
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