Dec 14, 2009
Bagapsh Re-elected
On December 12th, Abkhazia’s current de-fact President Sergey Bagapash was re-elected to serve another term in the breakaway region. Civil.ge reports:
Sergey Bagapsh, was re-elected with 59.4% of votes, the breakaway region’s central election commission (CEC) said on Sunday.
When first elected in late 2004, Bagapash was not supported by the Kremlin, causing a standoff in the aftermath of the election over who was the ‘real’ winner, although Russia eventually recognized Bagapsh’s victory of their handpicked man, sikoviki Raul Khadzimba. This time around, the Kremlin did not choose any official side to play it safe; however, Putin did visit Sokhumi in advance of the elections and mentioned Bagapesh should be ‘rewarded’ with a new term.
In addition, according to Aljazeera‘s website, Russian election monitors claimed the elections were fair and transparant, although unfortunately the monitors forgot to mention that most Georgian minorities were not allowed to vote.
One third of the population were not allowed to take part as they were ethnic Georgian.
The question of suffrage for ethnic Georgians caused a stir this past summer after members of the opposition, including Khadzimba, claimed that the Bagapsh administration’s integration strategy was too empowering of ethnic Georgians. “At this moment, there are as many citizens of Abkhazia of Georgian ethnicity as there are of Abkhaz ethnicity,” said Khadzimba, quoted in a September EurasiaNet article. The integration plans – which did not permit dual citizenship with Georgians – were scrapped.
For its part, the Georgian Government, obviously, called the elections an ‘immoral comedy,’ staged by the occupying force – Russia.
Nevertheless, whether the elections were an ‘immoral comedy’ or ‘free and fair,’ it should be noted that a main reason for Bagapsh triumph is a general feeling of victory after the August 2008 war [and of course the exclusion of minorities - a grave violation of international law].
Not to forget:
The opposition, which has complained of widespread fraud, had hoped to force Bagapsh into a run-off.
What evolutsia.net’s contributors have ignored is that Georgia’s security will come through diplomacy. Under Saakashvili,a truly bizarre scenario has emerged whereby even as hundreds of thousands of Georgians continue to live in Russia, many of whom well integrated into Russian society, mutual hostility continues between the two governments. By contrast, Turkey, formerly a rival of Russia, has benefited by developing close ties with Moscow. Georgia has decided to throw away all of the advantages that come with normalizing relations with Moscow. It has also gone out of its way to antagonize relations with Armenia by tolerating the destruction – sometimes the vandalism – of Armenian churches on its territory
@Serge: What benefits? Corruption, destabilisation, loss of democracy? Georgia is in no position to gain benefits like a large nation like Turky. In fact Georgia will be in danger as soon as they start cooperating with Moscow. It will give Europe an excuse to realx and look away, and then Moscow will gradually destabilize the country and replace the government with their own puppets. Like in Ingushetia, Chachenya and in the two rebel republics. The only reasonable thing to do for Georgia is to keep the conflict alive.
Armenia and Azerbaijan appear to enjoy good relations with both Russia and the EU / US. Baltic states have also improved their relations with Russia after recent frosty relations. Why should Georgia be the exception?
I don’t see the parallell here. It’s like comparing apples and bananas. Neither do I see any improved relations with Russia and the Baltic states. I don’t know about EU. They are traders and as such would improve ties with anyone if they could benefit economically from it.
While it is clearly stated that Russia want to see a new regime in Georgia, they have never said anything about the regimes in Az and Ar. Just exercised slight pressure. They have spent 16-17 years trying to destabilise Georgia though. I think that makes a big difference. Georgia is also a threat seeking NATO membership; not so with Az and Ar. It’s just not comparable.