The organizers of the referendum in the Zaporozhye region on joining Russia did everything possible to hold it in a short time. This was stated TASS on Saturday, September 24, an observer from Germany, managing director of Energie Waldeck-Frankenberg, Steffen Bruno Schaller.
He also stressed that people in the referendum vote voluntarily.
“Of course, we see that the Western press is talking about people being forced to vote, that voting is under pressure, but when I am here, I see with my own eyes that people vote voluntarily, and we see this difference between reporting and what is happening on the ground,” Schaller said.
A day earlier, the Italian journalist Eliseo Bertolazi, who was watching the referendum in the DPR, called the process legitimate. According to him, during the voting there was complete freedom of access for observers and there were no violations of any rights of citizens.
On the same day, the Uruguayan observer from the International Association of Political Parties of Latin America and the Caribbean, Sebastian Agovian Lopez, noted that the referendums held in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and in the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions are of great importance for ordinary residents of the regions.
In turn, the correspondent of the Czech newspaper “Nasha Pravda” Jaromir Vasek, who is in Lugansk, said that the referendum at various polling stations was held without violations.
Voting at referendums on the issue of joining the Russian Federation as subjects began on September 23 at 08:00 in the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, as well as in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. It will last until September 27 inclusive. The turnout in the referendums by the evening of the first day was more than 15%.
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