A disputed referendum concerning the status of Crimea was conducted in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (both subdivisions of Ukraine) on March 16, 2014, after Russian forces seized control of Crimea.
The referendum was a step in the process of Russia annexing Crimea. The referendum asked voters whether they wanted to rejoin Russia as a federal subject, or if they wanted to restore the 1992 Crimean constitution and Crimea's status as a part of Ukraine. The final date and ballot choices were set only ten days before the referendum was held. Before, during and after the referendum was proclaimed, the Crimean peninsula saw Russian soldiers take over public buildings and Ukrainian military installations. When the referendum was proclaimed, the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People called for a boycott of the referendum.
The official result from the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was a 97 percent vote for integration of the region into the Russian Federation, with an 83 percent voter turnout, and from Sevastopol there was also a 97 percent vote for integration with Russia, with an 89 percent voter turnout.
The March 16 referendum's available choices did not include keeping the status quo of Crimea and Sevastopol as they were at the moment the referendum was held. The 1992 constitution accords greater powers to the State Council of Crimea, including full sovereign powers to establish relations with other states; therefore, many Western and Ukrainian commentators argued that both provided referendum choices would result in de facto separation from Ukraine.
Following the referendum, the State Council of Crimea and Sevastopol City Council declared the independence of the Republic of Crimea from Ukraine and requested to join the Russian Federation. On the same day, Russia recognized the Republic of Crimea as a sovereign state.
The referendum was illegal under the Constitution of Ukraine. It is not recognized by most countries, as it was conducted under the auspices of Russian forces. Thirteen members of the United Nations Security Council voted in favor of a resolution declaring the referendum invalid, but Russia vetoed it and China abstained. A United Nations General Assembly resolution was later adopted, by a vote of 100 in favor vs. 11 against with 58 abstentions, which declared the referendum invalid and affirmed Ukraine's territorial integrity.
Background
According to the 2001 Ukrainian population census, 58.3% of the population of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea are ethnic Russians, 24.3% are ethnic Ukrainians and 12% are Crimean Tatars. In Sevastopol, 71.6% are ethnic Russians and 22.4% are ethnic Ukrainians. 77% of Crimea's and 94% of Sevastopol's population are native speakers of Russian.
Crimea and Sevastopol are neighboring subdivisions of Ukraine located in the Crimean peninsula, a region with a long and complex history. Demographically, the region is currently populated by Russian-speaking majorities but with such demographics undergoing dramatic changes for the past 200 years, due in part to the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1944. Following the Tatar deportation, large numbers of ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians settled in the region.
History
During the period of the Soviet Union, the Crimean Oblast was a subdivision of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic until the 1954 transfer of Crimea into the Ukrainian SSR. Crimea became part of independent Ukraine after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, shortly after Crimea had re-gained its autonomy following a 1991 referendum. The Ukrainian parliament abolished the 1992 Crimean Constitution and the office of President of Crimea in 1995. In 1998, Crimea gained a new constitution, which granted it less autonomy; notably, any legislation passed by the Crimean parliament could be vetoed by the Ukrainian parliament.
Polling prior to Russian occupation
Polling in 2008 by the Ukrainian Centre for Economic and Political Studies, also called the Razumkov Centre, found that a majority of Crimeans simultaneously approved the idea of joining Russia (63.8%), while also supporting the idea of remaining within Ukraine if Crimea was given greater autonomy (53.8%). Razumkov concluded that "the desired status of Crimea remains undecided by its residents. In their approaches, Crimeans reveal confusion, as they sometimes support mutually excluding alternatives... That is, half of Crimeans may, dependent on circumstances, support both secession of Crimea from Ukraine and an opposite scenario."
In contrast, the Kyiv Post polling found that from 2008–11, there was a rise of respondents who defined Ukraine as their "motherland" to increase from 32% to 71%.
The United Nations Development Programme conducted a series of polls in Crimea between 2009 and 2011 about the status of Crimea and the question of leaving Ukraine and joining Russia with a sample size of 1,200:
A poll by the International Republican Institute in May 2013 found that 53% wanted "Autonomy in Ukraine (as today)", 12% were for "Crimean Tatar autonomy within Ukraine", 2% for "Common oblast of Ukraine", and 23% voted for "Crimea should be separated and given to Russia".
A poll conducted in Crimea in 2013 by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that 35.9% of Crimeans support the unification of the entirety of Ukraine with Russia. The poll was repeated between February 8 – 18, 2014 (just days before the ousting of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych), with the amount of those wishing to join Ukraine and Russia rising to then 41%.
Pre-referendum
On February 27, 2014, amidst tensions in the region due to the Ukrainian revolution, Russian forces cut the Crimean Peninsula off from mainland Ukraine and took over the Supreme Council of Crimea. The Crimean regional government was dissolved and reconstituted under Russian supervision, and voted to hold a referendum on the status of Crimea on May 25.
While 64 members of the 100 member legislature were registered as present during the votes, the actual number of members present at the time is unclear due to armed occupation of the parliament building. Russian militia commander Igor Girkin recounted that his squad "collected" the deputies into the chambers, and had to "forcibly drive them to vote". Enver Abduraimov, member of the parliament presidium, said that he did not go inside when he saw that armed guards who secured the building were confiscating all communications devices from deputies. Andriy Krysko, head of the Crimean branch of the Voters Committee of Ukraine, announced that no one from the parliament secretariat was in the building when voting took place.
The referendum was to be about the status of Crimea within Ukraine and was set for May 25, but later, on March 1, it was moved up to March 30. The referendum was approved by the Supreme Council of Crimea in February but the Central Election Commission of Ukraine denounced it by stating that the Crimean authorities do not possess the legal jurisdiction to conduct it. Regarding the referendum's initial purpose, The Daily Telegraph reported on February 27, that it, "appears to be for greater autonomy within Ukraine rather than for full independence."
On March 4, the district administration court of Kyiv nullified the no confidence vote in the Council of Ministers of Crimea and the appointment of Sergey Aksyonov as Prime Minister of Crimea and declared the organization and conduct of the referendum as illegal. On March 6, the Supreme Council changed the date of the referendum from March 30 to 16 and changed the choice for the referendum from greater autonomy to accession to the Russian Federation. This decision was made with 78 votes in favor and 8 abstentions. Concerns were raised about the presence of armed forces outside the parliament and reports of lawmakers being denied access to the vote. Later that day, acting President Turchynov announced "In accordance with power I am conferred on, I have stopped the decision of the Crimean parliament. The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine will initiate dissolution of the parliament of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. We will defend the inviolability of the Ukrainian territory." On 14 March, the referendum was deemed unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, and a day later, the Verkhovna Rada formally dissolved the Crimean parliament.
The Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People had called for a boycott of the referendum. Several hundred residents of Crimea, mainly Crimean Tatars, left Crimea for security reasons according to the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine. The BBC reported that most of the Crimean Tatars that they interviewed were boycotting the vote.
Administration
Choices
There were two choices to choose from on the ballot. Voters were able to choose only one of these. The choices reflected the following stances:
The referendum's available choices did not include keeping the status quo of retaining arrangements enacted by the 1998 Constitution of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. Additionally, the meaning of the second choice is unclear because there were two revisions of the Crimean constitution in 1992. The original 1992 constitution was adopted together with a declaration of independence, but the parliament then amended the constitution one day later to affirm that Crimea "was a part of Ukraine".
Many commentators, including those at The New York Times, Kyiv Post, and Fox News, argued that both choices would result in de facto independence.
The ballot was printed in three languages: Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar (in the Cyrillic script).
Procedure
There were two simultaneous referendums, one organised by the Sevastopol City Council and another organised by a special committee set up by the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
Several irregularities were reported during the vote. People were seen dropping the ballots before the start of the referendum. Journalists were not allowed at some stations.
The referendum was to be decided by a simple majority with the choice with the most votes declared winner. The referendum rules did not state if there was a threshold number of votes needed for the result to be enacted.
Legal aspects
President of Russia Vladimir Putin during his conversation with Mustafa Dzhemilev, a former chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, stated that Ukrainian Independence from the Soviet Union was not obtained legitimately, while maintaining that the Crimean referendum followed all international-law, the UN charter, and the convention established by Kosovo's NATO-prodded annexation from Serbia.
Russia and the Crimean parliament argue that the referendum is legal, citing the UN recognized right of self-determination and the advisory opinion on Kosovo in which the International Court of Justice declared that international law contains no prohibition against declarations of independence. Legal scholars have disputed the validity of the Kosovo analogy.
Organizing and holding the referendum on Crimea's accession to Russia was illegal under the Constitution of Ukraine. According to article 73 of the 1996 Constitution of Ukraine and article 3 of the 2012 Ukrainian law "On all-Ukrainian referendum", territorial changes can only be approved via a referendum where all the citizens of Ukraine are allowed to vote, including those that do not reside in Crimea. The Central Election Commission of Ukraine also stated that there are no judicial possibilities, according to the legislation of Ukraine, to initiate such changes.
Both of the ballot options for the March 16, 2014 Crimean referendum acknowledged that Crimea was already an independent state at that time, despite the declaration of independence occurring without a national vote in Ukraine, as the constitutions required.
The interim Ukrainian government, the European Union, and several other bodies stated that any referendum held by the local government of Crimea without the express authority of Ukraine is unconstitutional and illegitimate. The interim government in Kyiv and the pro-Russian Crimean faction did not recognize each other as legitimate. Additionally, the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People—the unofficial political association of the Crimean Tatars—called for a boycott of the referendum.
The Venice Commission declared that the referendum was illegal under both Ukrainian and Crimean Constitutions, and violated international standards and norms. The Venice Commission stressed that self-determination was to be understood primarily as internal self-determination within the framework of the existing borders and not as external self-determination through secession. Moreover, the Venice Commission opined, any referendum on the status of a territory should have been preceded by serious negotiations among all stakeholders, and that such negotiations did not take place.
Many scholars and politicians (Neil Melvin, Robert McCorquodale, John Kerry, John B. Bellinger III, Marc Weller among others) have stated that the referendum was conducted under the cover of assault rifles and, thus, the result was obtained through violence.
Party of Regions MP Yuriy Miroshnychenko claimed on March 11 that "the Crimean referendum is illegitimate, and its holding must be immediately stopped". Another Party of Regions MP, Hanna Herman, commented the same day about Yanukovych's press conference, "He needs to ... prevent the illegal referendum".
Campaign
According to BBC News the campaign leading up to the referendum was "almost entirely pro-Russian". Pro-Russia election posters often featured crossed-out swastikas in an alleged attempt to be saying "No" to the Ukrainian government, whom they alleged to be neo-Nazis. Shortly after the referendum was called, Ukrainian TV channels were made unavailable for Crimean viewers, some of them were replaced with Russian stations. BBC News also stated it had received reports of violence against pro-Ukrainian activists.
Unsigned billboards and leaflets campaigning for the referendum, describing new Ukraine government as fascists and showing economic reasons to join Russia, appeared throughout Crimea.