Runoff Slated for Repeat Polls in Abkhazia

Russian-occupied Abkhazia has set for June 11 the runoff race of the repeat poll in district #8 in Sokhumi for a five-year majoritarian seat in the legislature, Sokhumi-based Apsnypress agency reported today.

Naur Narmania and Leon Gubaz will contest the seat in the runoff, after they received 776 (34.43%) and 695 (30.83%) votes, respectively, in the repeat vote of May 28. Other contenders, Irakli Chachkhalia, Temur Kvekveskiri and Jansugh Adleiba failed to advance to the runoff.

Abkhaz election administration reported that the turnout was 55.48%, with 2,254 of the 4,063 eligible voters heading to the polls.

The repeat vote had been slated for May 28 after Narmania and Gubaz both received the same amount of votes in the second round of the “parliamentary elections” on March 26.

As things stand, occupied Abkhazia has already picked 34 other deputies for its 35-member legislature.

In the new legislature, which convened on April 12, the Aslan Bzhania administration is said to have at least 25 loyal deputies, an unusual make-up for the Abkhaz legislature where independent majoritarians have traditionally trumped political parties.

Elections in Abkhazia are considered illegitimate by Tbilisi, as well as the most of international community except Russia and the several states that recognize the independence of the occupied region.

Some 260,000 ethnic Georgians, that made the largest ethnic group in pre-war Abkhazia, remain uprooted from their homes. 

Further, some 30,000 ethnic Georgians in the Abkhaz-controlled Gali district are not allowed to vote after being stripped of their Abkhaz passports in 2014 and 2017.

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