Bagapsh Wins Abkhaz Marathon

After a four-month marathon, the presidential elections in Abkhazia finally concluded last week.

As expected, Abkhaz energy boss Sergei Bagapsh was elected president and his former rival Raul Khajimba named vice-president on January 12, according to the terms of a deal struck in December.

Central election figures indicate that Bagapsh got 91.6 per cent of the vote, while his only opponent Yakub Lakoba got just four per cent. The turnout was 58 per cent.

“It is the people of Abkhazia who have won the presidential election,” Bagapsh said after the results were declared. “We had no doubt we would win, but we did not expect to win by so much. These elections took place thanks to the principled position of the people of the republic.”

The day after the results were announced, Bagapsh met outgoing president Vladislav Ardzinba, and they agreed on a date for the inauguration - St Valentine’s Day, February 14.

Few doubted that Bagapsh, who had the support of a united opposition, would win. In the presidential elections in October, he was acknowledged as the winner by the central electoral commission and then the supreme court. But his chief opponent Khajimba - the candidate backed by the authorities and openly supported by the Kremlin - refused to accept defeat. Their dispute almost triggered a civil war.

On December 6, however, with the help of numerous mediators including Russian officials, Bagapsh and Khajimba reached a compromise agreement, under which repeat elections would be held and the two rivals would run on the same ticket.

Soon afterwards, the local parliament passed a constitutional law, enhancing the powers of the vice president under which the second in command in Abkhazia was responsible for the armed forces and foreign affairs.

In addition, if the pair won, Raul Khajimba’s supporters would have the right to 40 per cent of the posts in the future government. However, as the day of the election neared, it became clear that the outgoing presidential administration, which had been deeply opposed to Bagapsh, was mounting a rearguard action. The only tactic they could employ was to try to secure a low turnout, which would have invalidated the poll.

At first this campaign was waged unofficially. But five days before the vote, Khajimba’s main support group in the autumn elections, Akhyatsa, announced that Abkhazia was not ready to conduct proper elections in such a short period of time and they therefore intended to boycott the poll.

Many believed that Akhyatsa was voicing the views of the outgoing president, Ardzinba.

At any rate, since the agreement was signed on December 6, Ardzinba, who had been its guarantor, had not alluded to it. Moreover, on the eve of the elections, the president did not appeal to people to go out and vote the next day, as is customary.

On election day, it was noted that at all polling stations where people registered as observers representing opposition candidate Yakub Lakoba had been observers for Khajimba in the autumn elections. In the October poll, Lakoba - who got by far the smallest number of votes; only half a per cent - did not have a single observer.

“I have been an international observer for many elections, but I have never seen anything like this,” said Russian State Duma deputy Georgy Tikhonov. The Lakoba observers themselves did not hide the fact that their main aim was not to secure victory for their candidate, but to monitor the election. And almost none of them cast a ballot.

“Why would I vote? What if mine was the vote that tipped the balance and validated the election?” admitted a Lakoba observer in Sukhum.

On polling day, there were problems in the southern Gali region, which has a mainly Georgian population. Special forces units and the presidential security service started to obstruct the local people from getting to the polls. The deputy speaker of the State Duma, Sergei Baburin, who was registered as an observer, went to Gali to try and calm the situation.

“We are shocked by what state security officials are doing to obstruct voters in this area,” he said.

“Armed men are scaring people and not letting them vote. In the village of Tagilon a bridge has been closed and local people cannot get to the polling station,” added Baburin, who later met with Abkhaz prime minister Nodar Khashba and managed to straighten things out.

Despite these incidents, the elections went ahead and Ardzinba finally congratulated Bagapsh on his victory, signaling the end of a four-month battle to keep him out of power.

“Thankfully it’s all over – the country is tired of nothing but elections,” said Aslan Zukhba, a veteran of the war with Georgia. “It is time to get back to normal life.

“Even though I’m completely uninterested in politics, I decided it was better to vote than for there to be a civil war, which would mean I’d have to pick up a gun,” he said.

With Bagapsh’s inauguration scheduled for February 14, all eyes are now turned on to the relationship between the new president and vice-president, once bitter rivals.

Before the elections, it was promised that the new prime minister will be Bagapsh’s most powerful ally Alexander Ankvab, but neither Bagapsh nor Khajimba have said any more about who will serve in government.

Many believe that Khajimba has been weakened by his supporters’ decision to boycott the elections.

Former parliamentary deputy Tamaz Ketsba said, “Although by the December 6 agreement he should acquire huge powers, neither Bagapsh nor Ankvab - who are more charismatic figures than he - will allow him to use them effectively.

“No one doubts that the second figure in the Abkhaz hierarchy will be Ankvab, not Khajimba.”

Inal Khashig is editor in Abkhazia of IWPR’s Caucasus newspaper Panorama.