Half of Abkhaz Parliament Seats Remain Vacant

A run-off vote will be held on March 18 in breakaway Abkhazia to fill the remaining 17 seats in the 35-member parliament of the breakaway region.

The run-off vote will be held in 17 single-mandate constituencies where, according to the Abkhaz Central Election Commission (CEC), none of the candidates managed to garner enough votes, including in two constituencies of the Georgian-populated Gali District – Shashikvari and Gali. Yuri Kereselidze was elected in the Chuburkhinji constituency of the Gali District, according to the Abkhaz CEC.

The breakaway region’s CEC confirmed that the March 4 parliamentary polls resulted in the election of 18 MPs – six of whom are incumbent lawmakers, including chairman of the parliament Nugzar Ashuba.

Reportedly, at least five of the 18 newly-elected MPs are members of opposition parties united in the Forum of Abkhaz People’s Unity.

The rest of newly-elected lawmakers are from the United Abkhazia, Aitaira and Amtsakhara political parties, all of which back Abkhaz leader Sergey Bagapsh.

A total of 108 candidates ran for 35 seats in the breakaway region, where there are a total of 129 650 eligible voters, according to the Abkhaz CEC.

Elections were held based on the majoritarian system in 35 single-mandate constituencies; three of these are located in the Gali District.
 
Chairman of the CEC Batal Tabagua said that no major violations have been reported. He also thanked law enforcers for providing security as there was not a single incident of unrest on election day, the Abkhaz news agency Apsnipress reported on March 5.

The CEC of the breakaway region also said that the elections were valid in all 35 constituencies, including the Gali District, as voter turnout was above 46%. The minimum threshold is 25%.

But according to Georgian media, the elections were thwarted in the Gali District as local Georgians boycotted the polls.

Georgian television stations showed footage on March 4 and 5 that was reportedly “secretly filmed” in the Gali District. According to the television stations, the footage depicted polling stations that were closed down because of “no voter turnout” in the Gali District.

Tbilisi has denounced the elections as illegal, a position shared by most of the international community.

A group of Russian lawmakers from the State Duma, a lower house of the Parliament, were in Abkhazia to monitor the March 4 elections.

It is most likely that Moscow will have a similar reaction as it did to the February 11 local elections in Abkhazia, which the Russian Foreign Ministry said “mainly corresponded to international electoral and democratic norms.”

“Two-thirds of Abkhazia’s population has been expelled. And these [March 4] elections had nothing in common with real elections. This is a kind of pre-emptive statement in a response to the anticipated statement of the Russian Foreign Ministry,” MP Mikheil Machavariani, Vice-Speaker of the Georgian parliament, said at the parliamentary bureau session on March 5.

Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli said on March 4 that elections in Abkhazia were not only illegal but also “immoral.”

The run-up to the March 4 elections was marked with tensions in the Gali District. The Georgian side was accusing Sokhumi of intimidating and mounting pressure on local Georgians in Gali to force them to vote, while Sokhumi denied the allegations and claimed that Tbilisi was stirring tensions in the Georgian enclave and discouraging local ethnic Georgians from cooperationg with the Abkhaz administration in an attempt to discredit the Abkhaz authorities.