Deserted Streets as Rebel-Held East Ukraine Shuns Vote

The streets were deserted on Sunday in Ukraine's rebel-held eastern hub of Donetsk, with only a few polling stations open for an election many here are ignoring.

"Ukraine is now another country so I don't see why we should take part in this election," said one woman in Donetsk city center who gave her name as Elisabeta.

"It doesn't matter what the result is, it doesn't concern us today."

Pro-Russian separatists waging an insurgency against the Kiev government have threatened to disrupt the vote in Donetsk and Lugansk, the main regions they control in the heart of Ukraine's coal and steel industry.

Even before the vote, election officials reported many cases of intimidation and attacks on polling stations in the east, where scores of people have been killed since Ukrainian forces launched an offensive to crush the insurgents in mid-April.

According to the official Donetsk administration website, only 426 out of 2,430 polling stations were open about two hours after voting officially started.

In Lugansk, officials had said only two out of 12 wider constituencies would open their polling stations.

But some residents remained determined to exercise their democratic right despite the problems in even finding somewhere to cast their ballots.

In the Donetsk district of Kalininska, housewife Raissa was visibly distressed to find the doors firmly closed at the school where she usually votes.

"We went to the airport because we read we could vote there but there was nothing," she said.

"We can't vote and that makes me want to cry," she said. "I can't stand this situation, I want to vote for change because I love Ukraine."

The story was however a little different in Dobropillya, a town west of Donetsk where election officials defied the rebel threats to make sure polling stations were open.

"The fact that we have all turned up to work here today shows that we're not afraid," said Tetyana Shapovalova, the head of the polling center.

A steady trickle of voters, mainly elderly, came to cast their ballots in the frescoe-ceilinged cavernous hall of Dobropillya's Stalin-era palace of culture.

"I felt an obligation to come to vote. If we can organize all this in our town then I feel it is my duty to vote as a Ukrainian," said Natalya Filatova who works at an agricultural firm.

"It is scary of course but I had to vote, especially in this town where the people have defended themselves and the army is out surrounding the town."

She said she had voted for front-runner Petro Poroshenko, a billionaire chocolate baron, because he had the best chance of winning in the first round Sunday.

"We really want this election to help calm everything down, return it to the peace we had."