Race for Most of Abkhaz MP Seats Goes into Runoff

More than half of the seats in breakaway Abkhazia’s 35-member National Assembly will go into a second round of voting in two weeks as only 12 candidates managed to gain an outright victory in the March 12 election held under the majoritarian system, local media sources reported on Monday.

Runoff races will be held in those 22 single-mandate constituencies where none of the candidates managed to garner over 50% of votes.

Repeat elections will be held in one district in two months.

Among those 12 candidates, who have won the race with over 50% of votes in their respective single-mandate constituencies, is the former Abkhaz leader Aleksandr Ankvab, who stepped down from his post in 2014 after mass unrests in Sokhumi, the region’s capital.

Elections in Abkhazia are denounced as illegitimate by Tbilisi and the international community, except of Russia and few other countries, which have recognized Abkhazia.

Total of 137 candidates were running for seats in the National Assembly, including eight women and 28 incumbent lawmakers. Only 24 of them were nominated by political parties and others were nominated by initiative groups.