| Abkhazia is offended by Russian agitators Yesterday presidential elections took place in Abkhazia. The main contenders for the highest post in the unrecognized republic were the current Prime Minister Raul Khadzhimba, the official successor to the current President Vladislav Ardzinba, who has been seriously ill for the last two years, and the head of Chernomorenergo, who united the opposition, and former Prime Minister Sergei Bagapsh. Competing with them were ex-Prime Minister Anri Dzhergenia, ex-head of the Abkhaz Foreign Ministry Sergei Shamba and Chairman of the People's Party Yakub Lakoba. Interfax reported yesterday, with reference to the little-known scientific center Unified State University of Public Policy, that a poll of voters at the exit from polling stations allegedly indicated Khadzhimba’s convincing leadership with 56% of the vote.
According to the Chairman of the Central Election Commission of Abkhazia Sergei Smyr, the barrier of 50% on average in the republic was overcome, and the elections took place. Meanwhile, candidates are already making statements about violations. Sergei Bagapsh claims that “gross violations were committed at polling stations, primarily related to additional lists.” The presidential candidate said that he had agreed with the Central Election Commission that it was necessary to identify “doubles” - that is, voters who voted twice.
This task is not an easy one - no one knows the exact number of voters in Abkhazia, approximately there are from 160 to 180 thousand. A few days before the elections there were only 115 thousand, then additional lists had to be compiled. The CEC did not come to the attention of 24 thousand Abkhaz pensioners who were applying for Russian pensions for themselves, as well as those who were processing foreign passports in September and receiving a second, Russian citizenship.
On the eve of the elections, on September 30, a scandal unimaginable for the Ardzinba era broke out in Abkhazia. Deputy Speaker of the State Duma Vladimir Zhirinovsky and some other Duma deputies, Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov, a native of Sukhumi, as well as Joseph Kobzon, Oleg Gazmanov and other pop stars came from Russia to campaign for the current prime minister as private individuals. However, on Friday, the Abkhaz parliament called the six-hour event at the Sukhumi stadium, broadcast in its entirety by local TV, “a gross violation of the law “On the elections of the President of the Republic of Abkhazia.”
The deputies were offended by the fact that Russian politicians and cultural figures linked future Russian assistance to Abkhazia with the election of Raul Khadzhimba as president. “Perhaps this was not direct intervention from Russia and an indication of who to choose,” First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Abkhazia Maxim Gvindzhia reasoned in a conversation with a Vremya Novostei correspondent. “But our people took it painfully.” Why was it necessary to turn the day of victory in the war, the day of our independence, the day when we remembered our dead, into a PR campaign?”
The indignation of Abkhaz parliamentarians is understandable. However, the Russian landing was also a clear challenge to the authorities in Tbilisi, who are trying to return the breakaway republic under their control. It would seem that the elections do not bode well for Georgia - no matter who wins, any new president will turn out to be “pro-Russian”. “An active part of Abkhaz society - leading parties, non-governmental organizations - supports Sergei Bagapsh,” Paata Zakareishvili, a well-known Georgian expert on the problem of Abkhazia, told Vremya Novostey. - Khajimba can win due to administrative resources or falsifications, but he will always be a Moscow appointee, a Moscow puppet. Khadzhimba is doomed to pursue a pro-Russian policy; this is his main and, perhaps, only trump card. Moreover, as a professional security officer (Khadzhimba is a graduate of the Minsk Higher School of the KGB of the USSR. - Ed. ) he will seek support from the security forces of Russia. Bagapsh's policy will also be pro-Russian, but focused on economic ties. Bagapsh is more Abkhaz than Khadzhimba; the ideals of Abkhaz independence are dearer to him. This means that he will better conduct political bargaining in negotiations with Georgia.”
A year ago, when Abkhazia celebrated the tenth anniversary of the victory over the Georgian army, words were first heard that the post-war results were sad - the economy was in collapse, there was no international recognition.
Some politicians found the courage to openly admit that Abkhazia has simply become an instrument of Moscow to put pressure on Tbilisi. Society demanded change. Part of the intellectual and bureaucratic elite created “United Abkhazia”, which, together with the influential “Amtsakhara” (“Ancestral Lights” - a movement of veterans of the war with Georgia), supported the candidacy of Sergei Bagapsh. Sergei Bagapsh has already stated that “it is necessary to change the authoritarianism that has existed in the republic for 11 years.” “We are not going to rule - we are going to be managers for the people of Abkhazia,” the opposition candidate emphasized. He sees Abkhazia as an independent state with “in-depth integration of the Russian economy into the Abkhazian one on mutually beneficial terms.”
The Georgian expert hopes that dissatisfaction with Russian interference in Abkhaz society will become a landmark event. “If it weren’t for Georgia’s short-sighted strategy in relation to Abkhazia in recent years, the distance between Sukhumi and Moscow could have been more noticeable. After all, what do they expect from Tbilisi in Abkhazia now? Either nothing, or they are afraid of aggression,” says Mr. Zakareishvili. But now, in his opinion, no matter who wins the elections, Georgian-Abkhaz negotiations will begin. “No one except Ardzinba had such merits to Abkhazia. No one will be forgiven for what everyone was waiting for when he left the stage. The Caucasian mentality did not allow pulling an unhealthy person. But now society wants changes and will demand them from the new authorities,” says Mr. Zakareishvili.
The thirst for change does not mean the inevitability of a softening of the Abkhaz position in negotiations with Tbilisi. In an interview with our newspaper, the chairman of the government of Abkhazia in exile, the special representative of the President of Georgia for the Abkhaz settlement, Irakli Alasania, said: “A peaceful course will be a priority for us, and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili recently said this from the rostrum of the UN General Assembly.” “The pre-election temperature in Abkhazia is high,” noted Mr. Alasania. - We do not rule out conflicts between competitors and provocations in the Gali region. As for Russian agitators, we do not focus on this. Vladimir Putin met with Raul Khadzhimba in Sochi back in August.”
According to Paata Zakareishvili, voting was active yesterday in Abkhazia, even in the Gali region populated by Georgians. “In Sukhumi there are such queues at the polling stations that you have to stand for hours,” First Deputy Foreign Minister of Abkhazia, Mr. Gvindzhia, told Vremya Novostey. -- We accredited over 70 observers from the republics of the North Caucasus, from South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria, and Cossack organizations. They asked to send representatives of the UN and OSCE. But they do not recognize the legitimacy of the elections. Of course, we are an unrecognized republic, but what should we do?
One way or another, the first elections on an alternative basis were held in unrecognized Abkhazia. The permanent leader of the rebellious republic, 59-year-old Vladislav Ardzinba, whose name is associated with the actual separation of Abkhazia from Georgia, has finally left the political scene. The armed conflict with the Georgian army in 1992-1993, according to official data, claimed the lives of 17 thousand people, including 4 thousand Abkhazians. More than 270 thousand Georgians were forced to flee Abkhazia. The losses of the Abkhazian economy amounted to $10.7 billion. Mikhail VIGNANSKY, Tbilisi |
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