DPR chief candidate and incumbent DPR prime minister Aleksandr Zakharchenko's election promises were described by the Financial Times as "a list of mandates and promises that ran the gamut from somewhat realistic to well outside the realm of possibility". During campaign rallies, he told potential voters that he wanted pensions to be "higher than in Poland", and that pensioners should have enough money to "travel to Australia at least once a year to shoot a dozen kangaroos on Safari". Zakharchenko promised to build "a normal state, a good one, a just one. Our boys died for this, civilians are still being killed for this until now". Zakharchenko also vowed that production would soon restart at businesses closed by the war, that there would be a ten percent discount on certain groceries, that salaries would be immediately distributed to the city's doctors and nurses, and that pensioners would soon receive the pensions that had been unpaid since the start of the war. During a campaign rally, he said "These are historical times. We are creating a new country! It's an insane goal", and that "We're like the United Arab Emirates. Our region is very rich. We have coal, metallurgy, natural gas...the difference between us and the Emirates is they don't have a war there and we do". During campaign events, Zakharchenko carefully recorded the names of all those who appealed to him for help with some problem, and then summoned "one of a dozen aides who he promised would swiftly deal" with these problems.
