2025-22 MOSCOW and KIEV
Friday, October 10, 2025 In 2004, I suggested Ukraine should join the EU but not NATO. In 2009, I argued against binary voting procedures in the OSCE/ODIHR in Warsaw. And my lecture in Moscow on 8.10.2025 in the HSE University critiqued (a) the binary referendums of 2014 and 2022, and (b) the binary nature of the Ukrainian two-round electoral system.
In effect, the question asked was, "Are you Ukrainian or Russian?" But it is not a duality. The press release explains:
MAJORITY VOTING MAY BE ACCURATE IF, BUT ONLY IF, THE TWO OPTIONS ARE A DUALITY. Otherwise, see below, under PLURALISM.
Both Hinduism and Buddhism talk of non-dualities. Christianity, as in Matthew 12:30 and Luke 11.23 – “Whoever is not with me is against me,”– is maybe more binary.
+ In 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, western ‘experts’ recommended our adversarial form of democracy – majoritarianism – which, on translation, is (or at least was) ‘bolshevism,’ {большевизм}.
+ When violence broke out in Nagorno-Karabakh in 1988, a Moscow headline read, “This is our Northern Ireland.” {“Вот – наш Ольстер.”}
+ In Moscow News 6/89 and Novy Mir 3/90, the current author described a consensual polity (and appeared alongside Alexandr Solzhenitsyn).
Dr. Emerson’s lecture in Moscow’s HSE University is a critique of majority voting:
the methodology is manipulable; its consequences in Ukraine, the Middle East, the Balkans, Rwanda etc.,
have been horrible!
Majority voting. There are two types:
with singletons – “Option X, yes or no?”– there may be a majority against everything; (as was in Brexit; as is in France), but
with a pairing – “Option X or option Y?” – there will always be a more popular, but not perhaps the most popular, outcome.
* * * * *
1 MAJORITARIANISM
CHINA
A NON-DUALITY
A vote on “Yīn or Yáng?” – an obvious non-duality – would be… non-sensical.
BRITAIN, 2016, Brexit:
ONLY ONE SINGLETON IN A FOUR-OPTION DEBATE?
Given that the UK could have been in the EU, EEC, Customs Union or WTO,
David Cameron’s singleton referendum on only one option – the UK in the EU – was… illogical,
8, THEN 4 SINGLETONS;
In parliament, Theresa May’s ‘indicative votes’, all singletons, ‘indicated’… nothing;
ONE PAIRING IN A MULTI-OPTION SCENARIO?
while Boris Johnson’s pairing – ‘his deal’ v ‘no deal’, a false duality – was blatant… manipulation.
NORTHERN IRELAND, Peace Agreement:
ANOTHER FALSE DUALITY
Voting on whether NI citizens should be, collectively, either in the UK or in a united Ireland – a
peace agreement’s ballot without a compromise option?! – would be at least… unwise.
CROATIA 1991, independence:
YET MORE FALSE DUALITIES
“Are you Serb or Croat?” Both are Christian, both Slav, and both have the same language, albeit
with different scripts. What’s more, the ballot ‘disenfranchised’ any in, or of, a mixed relationship,
plus any ‘peace-niks.’ Along with the poll in the Krajina one week earlier, the two ballots were… provocations.
Indeed, “all the wars in the former Yugoslavia started with a [singleton] referendum,” (Oslobodjenje,
Sarajevo’s legendary newspaper, 7.2.1999), as did the conflict in Ukraine in 2014; but first…
SCOTLAND, 2014
A ‘DUALITY’ IN A THREE-OPTION DEBATE?
The referendum was, in effect, “independence? or status quo?” The winner was neither; it was
‘devo-max’… which wasn’t on the ballot paper; nobody voted for it. Yet it won! That vote was… a fix!
UKRAINE, 1991, 2014 and 2022
THE WORST ‘FALSE-FLAG’ DUALITY
1 In 2014, the word Шотландия (Scotland) was used by Russian separatists in Luhansk.
2 The implied question of the referendums in Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk – more ‘fixes’ – was
“Are you Russian or Ukrainian?” but except for the Tatars in Crimea these two are, or were,
so similar! As in the Balkans, these binary ballots were divisive and… a cause of war.
* * * * *
2 PLURALISM
By definition, in any pluralist democracy, most controversial topics are (not dual, but) multi-optional. Decisions in parliaments and referendums should therefore be based (not on binary, but) on multi-optional, and ideally preferential ballots, usually of about six options – perfect for a multi-party parliament and the multi-nation COP 30 meeting on the environment.
(With 2 options, voters / MPs / countries have only 2 ways of voting: A or B; so they vote against each other.)
- With 3 options, there are 6 possible full ballots: A-B-C, A-C-B, B-A-C, B-C-A, C-A-B and C-B-A;
- with 4 options, 24 opinions may be expressed; A-B-C-D, A-B-D-C… B-C-D-A… D-C-B-A;
- while 5 or 6 options can cater for the diversity of human kind, and participants may cast their preferences with
each other. Nobody votes ‘no’. Instead, everyone casts their preferences in favour, as it were voting ‘YES!’, ‘YES’, ‘Yes’ and ‘yes’ to their 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th choices, and so on, as they wish, but never being negative. They’re either saying ‘yes’ to one or some thing(s), that or saying nothing!
Democracy is for everybody, (not just ‘a’ / ‘the’ majority). A points system of voting, the 1770 ‘Modified Borda Count MBC’ or ‘Borda preferendum’ can identify – in, say, a six-option ballot – the option with the highest average preference. The methodology is inclusive, literally, and non-majoritarian; what’s more, it is very accurate.
* * * * *
3 PACIFISM
And no matter what the facts, the other facts, and the others’ facts; no matter what the actions, inactions and reactions; no matter what the histories and all the various statements, interpretations and contradictions, for all concerned on both sides:
убить нельзя; thou shalt not kill.
