KIEV, Ukraine Marina Demko wants to build a stronger Ukraine if she wins a seat in her nations landmark parliamentary elections Sunday.
But she has one big problem: She is campaigning to represent a part of her country that is under the control of Russian-supported rebels who are trying to build a parallel state. Many residents there who believed in a united Ukraine have fled. And there is little chance that anyone remaining in the enclave that calls itself New Russia will have the chance to vote for representation in Kievs rowdy parliament, making her race entirely symbolic.
The rest of Ukraine will cast ballots Sunday for the last major national institution untouched since President Viktor Yanukovych was swept out in February on a tidal wave of pro-European protests. But Demko and dozens of other candidates are running campaigns-in-exile this year, forced from their hometowns in Ukraines breakaway eastern industrial heartland into provisional existences in dreary dormitories and chilly refugee camps.
Its impossible to do any campaigning. Theres a lot of fighting there, said Demko, who fled her home near the rebel stronghold of Donetsk after her husband was abducted by separatists in May. He was freed a month later, and they now live in a cramped hostel on the outskirts of Kiev. Of course I'd like to return home, but at the moment clearly its not possible. And it wont be possible for a long time, she said.
Ukraines leaders had intended Sundays parliamentary vote as the triumphant end to the last remnants of Yanukovychs government, completing a transformation that started in February and was supposed to have opened the door to the countrys European future. But the reality of Ukraines grim situation has dampened the celebrations, and the wave of candidates vying to represent territory that is too dangerous for them to visit is just the latest symptom of the nations travails.
More than 400,000 Ukrainians are displaced inside their own country, according to U.N. figures. Physically, Ukraine is more divided than ever, with its Crimean Peninsula annexed by Russia and rebels in the east having won concessions that effectively allow them to set up a permanent separatist enclave.
But the elections will still probably bring a cadre of new faces to power, further upending Ukraines chaotic political system with soldiers, activists and others who have no experience as elected politicians . The parliament will have the strongest pro-European orientation in Ukraines post-Soviet history, a new step for a country that has long been pulled between east and west.
The candidates include activists who participated in the winter protests to combat corruption, make Ukraine less dependent on Russia and turn the economy toward Europe. Demko, who is running as a member of the hard-line nationalist Freedom Party and who says she wants to rebuild a united nation, is one of them.
I never thought Id be involved in politics, Demko said. But politics found me.
Not long ago, Demko was an ordinary worker at the municipal water utility in Makeevka, an industrial city of 350,000 adjacent to Donetsk. She and her husband supported the pro-European protests that swept Ukraine over the winter, and they worked on behalf of Petro Poroshenkos presidential campaign in Donetsk in April and early May a bold move, since separatists had already seized government buildings and were slowly working to firm their control of the area.
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Ukraine elections highlight nations split between east and west