SIMFEROPOL, Crimea -- Crimea is two days from the much anticipated referendum that will decide its future, but many believe the outcome to be a foregone conclusion.
Sergiy Aksyonov, the new Crimean Prime Minister who was elected weeks ago after armed men captured the autonomous republic’s parliament, said during a news conference on March 14 that he had a strong feeling people will choose to join Russia come March 16, when the referendum will be held.
“On Monday we will meet you in new (independent state),” he told journalists, adding that about 80 percent of the peninsula’s population is expected to participate in the vote.
His deputy Rustam Temorgaliyev was even more confident about the results of the referendum. He said on March 6 that some 70 percent of people will vote for joining Russia.
But critics call the referendum, where no western observers including OSCE will be allowed to participate, nothing more than a “farce” meant to legitimize a declaration of independence pushed through the Crimean parliament on March 11.
“It looks like everything has already been counted and decided,” said Svitlana, a 33-year-old Sevastopol resident who did not give her last name, claiming it wasn’t safe to express such kind of views in Crimea now.
Oleksandr Chernenko, chairman of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, said it is impossible to organize such a referendum fairly in just 10 days. Initially it was scheduled for May 25 but was twice changed. It was first set for March 30, and then pushed up to March 16.
As of March 14, several hundreds journalists who filled out very detailed forms in order to receive accreditation for the referendum still had not heard responses from the regional government regarding their status.
But 2.2 million copies of bulletins for the referendum for 1.8 million residents of the peninsula had already been printed and distributed since last week.
“There were 400,000 extra bulletins,” said Rafat Chubarov, leader of Mejlis, the main government body of Crimean Tatars, on March 11.
All Crimean Tatars polled by the Kyiv Post said they were planning to boycott the referendum, saying it is illegal. Even if they wanted to come, none of them received any invitation to participate in it.
“The referendum can’t be honest because it started dishonestly, when they (Russian troops) came illegally into our country,” said Mavile Madjetova from Bakhchisaray, the Crimean Tatars’ stronghold.
But people, who are going to vote for Russia, claim they already received invitations, though in different ways – some in housing offices, some by postal service, while others just came for them at polling stations.
Pensioner Alla Sheremitina showed the Kyiv Post her invitation, adding that she couldn’t understand why the West was criticizing the referendum in Crimea.
“Let them not poke their noses,” she said.
Tetiana Rykhtun, an investigative journalist from Sevastopol, said that the organizers of the Crimean referendum took the lists of votes used during parliament elections in 2012 from the Party of Regions.
“They even didn’t change the numbers of polling stations from the all-Ukrainian vote,” she said.
This has led some observers to believe the Crimean authorities may transfer a number of Russian citizens to participate in the referendum instead of Crimeans to increase the number of those who support joining Russia.
Rykhtun believes the outcome of the referendum has already been decided.
“They (the Crimean government) will just write up what they want,” she said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at [email protected]. Kyiv Post staff writer Lily Hyde contributed reporting to this story.
Editor’s Note: This article has been produced with support from the project www.mymedia.org.ua, financially supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, and implemented by a joint venture between NIRAS and BBC Media Action.The content in this article may not necessarily reflect the views of the Danish government, NIRAS and BBC Action Media.
