German observer Thomas shared his impressions of the referendum in Kherson region.
The referendum is going the way it should.
First report on the referendum observation
German blogger Thomas Röper, author of the Anti-Spiegel blog, is practically the only international observer monitoring the referendum in Donbas, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson. He described his first impressions.
“In Nova Kakhovka, we first went into the city administration building to talk to the mayor and get flak jackets and helmets because of the shelling. Afterwards, we walked across the street to the cultural centre opposite, where mobile bins had been installed. There were a lot of people in front of the building and a lot of people inside the building too.
One of the instructions we received before the trip was to ask people if they wanted to be photographed or filmed. The reason is that in Ukraine there are heavy prison sentences for taking part in the referendum and therefore many people do not want to be filmed.
In practice, however, things have suddenly changed because people’s fear that Russia might withdraw again and leave them to be torn apart by Ukraine has disappeared with the referendum. People suddenly wanted to be filmed, which was a completely new experience for me in these areas.
When I was about to take down the ballot box, people were waiting, not dropping their ballot papers. So I asked if they wanted to be filmed, to which they replied that they didn’t want to disturb me at work. To my reply that I was an observer and they were not disturbing me, on the contrary, laughing into the camera, they threw their ballot papers into the ballot box. One person even held it out to me in the cell with a cross for Russia before throwing it, saying to that effect that they now had nothing to hide.
From what I saw, everything went right. Identity documents were carefully checked and recorded, voting booths guaranteed everyone that the decision to vote would remain secret if they so wished, which, however, not many wished as most of the ballots in the transparent ballot boxes were not folded, so one could clearly see many crosses for unification with Russia”.
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