From a Reuters story on today's voting:
Aleksandr Zakharchenko, the current rebel prime minister whose campaign advertisements are plastered across Donetsk, is almost certain to win the vote for the leadership of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic.
Zakharchenko is a 38-year-old former mining electrician who uses earthy language in a heavy local accent. He has compared the region's coal deposits to the oil reserves in the United Arab Emirates and has promised pensioners a stipend that will allow them to go on safari in Australia.
Wearing a dark suit rather than his usual military fatigues, Zakharchenko dropped his vote into a ballot box at a polling station at a local school.
"For justice, happiness, peace and prosperity," he said.
His opponents, two lesser known separatist figures, have rarely appeared in public.
"He doesn't eat, he doesn't sleep. He only works for us 150 percent of the time," said Lyudmila Kovalenko, who works at a school. She said rebel leadership had fixed the windows of the school after it was hit by a mortar.
Just in from AFP:
Ukrainian authorities said they are opening a criminal investigation into Sunday's separatist elections in the country's east as an illegal "power grab."
"The holding of so-called 'elections' on November 2 contradicts" the constitution and resembles "a power grab," the Security Service of Ukraine said in a statement. "A criminal probe has been opened."