Reports: Khajimba, Bagapsh Visit Moscow

Russian NTV television and Regnum news agency reported on November 1 that both pro-governmental Abkhaz presidential candidate Raul Khajimba and opposition candidate Sergey Bagapsh left for Moscow.

One of the leaders of the Abkhaz opposition Stanislav Lakoba, who is set to become the unrecognized republic?s Vice-President in the event that opposition candidate Sergey Bagapsh takes over as President, told the Regnum news agency that Bagapsh will hold talks with Russian officials from the Foreign Ministry, as well as from the Kremlin administration. Lakoba also said that Raul Khajimba, who is backed by the Kremlin, is visiting Moscow as well.

In mid-October Georgian media speculated that the Abkhaz opposition declined a Moscow-proposed deal in which Russia was ready to support opposition candidate Sergey Bagapsh, who had been declared president-elect, granting that he appoint Nodar Khashba as the Prime Minister of the unrecognized republic.

Nodar Khashba was appointed by outgoing Abkhaz de facto President Vladislav Ardzinba as Prime Minister after a crisis erupted in the breakaway region following disputed October 3 presidential elations. Before the new appointment he served as a deputy chief of the investments division of the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations.