MOSCOW, May 25, /ITAR-TASS/. Sunday’s presidential elections in Ukraine can be barely be called legitimate, Oleg Tserv, a member of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (parlaiement) and the leader of the South-East movement, told the Russia 24 television channel on Sunday night.
Although, he said it was still necessary to respect the choice of those Ukrainian who had voted for oligarch Petr Porishenko.
“Naturally, we cannot say these elections were legitimate, we can say only that we respect the will of those Ukrainian who voted for Poroshenko. But Donbass, Lugansk and Donetsk voted for neither of the candidates,” he said, noting that Poroshenko’s supporters were mainly from the Ukrainian western regions. “That is why we insist that this is the choice of only half of Ukraine,” he stressed, adding that if Poroshenko finally won the elections, he would be “the president of a half of the country.”
“The Poroshenko phenomenon stems from the fact that people are tired of the war, they are ready to vote for anyone who they think can stop this war. Yulia Timoshenko, who called to burn down the southeast of the country, Russians with atomic weapons… well, people have decided she is unable to stop the war,” he said.
“Much will depend on whether Petr Porioshenko takes the position of the Kiev authorities. If he condemns them, he will have a chance. If he stops the bloodshed, if he pulls back troops from the southeastern regions, announces amnesty, promises to change the constitution, grant the second official language status to the Russian language, he will have a chance,” Tsarev stressed.