MOSCOW, November 3 (RIA Novosti) — Acting Prime Minister Alexander Zakharchenko has won the election in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), the republic's central election commission said Monday.
Zakharchenko received 756,340 votes, while runner-up Alexander Kofman received around 111,000 votes. All votes have now been counted, the commission informed.
More than one million people took part in the election, with some 104,540 people voting distantly.
Zakharchenko's Donetsk Republic party leads in the parliamentary election with some 662,000 votes.
On Sunday, the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics held elections of the heads of the local governments and representatives of the legislative bodies. According to the election commission, no violations which could have affected the voting process have been registered.
Residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine established so-called people's republics that later declared independence following a February coup in Kiev.
In mid-April, Kiev authorities launched a military operation against independence supporters in eastern Ukraine. The conflicting sides reached a ceasefire agreement at a September 5 meeting of the trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine in Minsk.
The European Union, the United States and the United Nations have spoken out against the Sunday elections, claiming that they undermine the agreements reached in Minsk. Meanwhile, Russia has expressed its intention to recognize the elections and has emphasized that not recognizing them will run counter to the Minsk agreements and undermine efforts to rebuild peace in the regions.
