Photo: AP

The leaders of the self-proclaimed republics of Donbass agreed to postpone local elections until spring. Adopting a compromise solution is a step towards fulfilling the political part of the Minsk agreements and freezing the military conflict, politicians and experts say.

The leadership of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics announced the postponement of local elections, the Donetsk News Agency reported. Voting is scheduled for February 21, 2016.

Who needs elections?

The holding of local elections in Ukraine over the past months has been one of the unresolved issues in resolving the crisis in the southeast of the country. According to the Minsk agreements reached in February, local elections were to be held according to Ukrainian laws. The governments of the DPR and LPR scheduled elections unilaterally (for October 18 in the DPR and for November 1 in the LPR), which was regarded by Kiev as a violation of the Minsk agreements.

The leaders of the DPR and LPR explained their decision by saying that the Ukrainian side did not agree with them on the adoption of the law on local elections and violated the process of transferring powers to Donbass, but did not exclude the possibility of a compromise date. Western leaders have repeatedly emphasized that they would regard the holding of elections scheduled by the republics as a violation of the Minsk agreements by Russia and called on President Vladimir Putin to put pressure on the leadership of the republics to cancel the vote.

The issue of elections was discussed at the end of last week, during a meeting of the Normandy Four with the participation of Putin, Ukrainian President Poroshenko, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Following the meeting, Hollande said that the parties agreed to postpone the elections to another date and adopt a separate Ukrainian law for this purpose.

On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Putin had promised to convey to the leaders of the DPR and LPR “a comprehensive idea put forward by ... French and German partners.” The leaders of the republics studied the recommendations of Hollande and Merkel, held consultations with representatives of the OSCE and Russia and made a decision, according to a report from the Donetsk News Agency close to the leadership of the republics.

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Kiev has the floor

A separate law for the elections of the DPR and LPR has not yet been discussed in the Verkhovna Rada. On Monday evening, the first deputy chairman of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc party faction, Igor Kononenko, said that elections will take place when certain conditions are met: access to elections for all parties with Ukrainian registration, free access to the media and disarmament.

In a statement by the representatives of the republics in the contact group for the settlement, Denis Pushilin and Vladislav Deinego (cited by the Donetsk News Agency), it is emphasized that the election law must be initialed by all members of the group and cannot be changed during voting in the Rada.

The further fate of the Minsk agreements will depend on whether Kyiv agrees to accept the regulations of the working group, which will consolidate the agreements reached, emphasizes RBC’s interlocutor close to the leadership of the republics.

“We welcome this decision of the DPR and LPR. This is another example of a flexible and constructive approach in the interests of implementing the Minsk agreements,” Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov commented on the decision to postpone the elections. The decision of the republics was welcomed by Hollande and the representative of Ukraine in the contact group, Leonid Kuchma.

Holding elections in the self-proclaimed republics broke the political structure of the Minsk agreements, says Ukrainian political scientist Vladimir Fesenko. With today's decision, Russia demonstrated its influence on the republics, and the latter received an argument to the Quartet that they had made concessions, says Boris Makarenko from the Center for Political Technologies. “Within the republics, sentiments that Russia is “merging” them are likely to intensify,” Makarenko predicts.

Elections instead of military action

Agreements on the withdrawal of weapons and the postponement of elections guarantee the freezing of the armed conflict in the south-east of Ukraine, says an RBC interlocutor close to the leadership of the self-proclaimed republics. “An opportunity opens up for political discussions that will not be hampered by war,” adds RBC’s interlocutor.

At the end of September, members of the contact group on Ukraine in Minsk signed an agreement on the withdrawal of weapons with a caliber of less than 100 mm from the contact line in Donbass. On October 3, after negotiations in Paris, Ukraine and the republics announced the beginning of the withdrawal of equipment.

The ceasefire in the conflict zone “continues and is strengthened,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday, calling the agreement to postpone the elections a positive step. “The parties announced that they would withdraw tanks and other weapons from the contact line. This creates hope and strength,” Stoltenberg emphasized.

The withdrawal of weapons and the postponement of elections open up prospects for the implementation of the Minsk agreements, Fesenko agrees. “If there is no shooting until the New Year, then there will be a chance to stabilize the truce. Last year, it was the holding of elections that became the reason for a new escalation of the conflict,” the political scientist recalled.

In the Minsk agreements, the process is more important than the result, Makarenko believes. “It is better for everyone for the parties to exchange mutual reproaches than to shoot at each other,” the expert sums up.

Donbass will postpone elections