EurasiaNet, NY
March 4 2007

ABKHAZIA: PRESIDENT, OPPOSITION TRADE ACCUSATIONS
Liz Fuller 3/04/07
A EurasiaNet Partner Post from RFE/RL

Less than a week before the March 4 parliamentary elections in
Georgia’s unrecognized breakaway republic of Abkhazia, opposition
candidates have accused President Sergei Bagapsh of interfering in
the election process with the aim of ensuring the election of a
parliament "loyal" to the present leadership.

Less than a week before the March 4 parliamentary elections in
Georgia’s unrecognized breakaway republic of Abkhazia, opposition
candidates have accused President Sergei Bagapsh of interfering in
the election process with the aim of ensuring the election of a
parliament "loyal" to the present leadership.

The pro-Bagapsh camp is fielding candidates in all 35 constituencies;
to judge from their surnames, as listed in an appeal to the
electorate posted on February 26 by the official website apsny.ru,
they include three Slavs, two Armenians, and one Georgian.

On February 23, Bagapsh held a press conference (originally scheduled
for February 12), carried live by state television, in which
opposition deputies subsequently claimed he made derogatory comments
about them that constitute direct interference in the election
process and that triggered "a storm of indignation and concern" among
the population at large. That allegation was made in a February 26
statement carried by the website kavkaz-uzel.ru and signed by 19
opposition candidates, against five of whom Bagapsh is said to have
leveled unfounded criticism.

One of the five is Anri Djergenia, who from June 2001-November 2002
served as prime minister under Bagapsh’s predecessor Vladislav
Ardzinba. The statement further quotes Bagapsh as having told the
electorate they have a choice between voting for "those who will
bring peace and stability, or those who want to bring us to the verge
of civil war."

Damaging Evidence

Specifically, Bagapsh is said to have admitted that he has tried to
persuade one of the 19 signatories, Lieutenant General Vladimir
Arshba, a former first deputy defense minister and chief of General
Staff, to withdraw his candidacy in a "Russian" constituency and
register in a constituency where the rival candidates were Abkhaz.

Even more damaging, Bagapsh was said to have accused Arshba of trying
to organize a coup d’etat, an accusation the 19 signatories reject as
"absurd." Neither of Bagapsh’s imputed accusations against Arshba
figure in the verbatim extracts from the press conference carried by
apsny.ru and posted on Bagapsh’s website (http:).

Eight of the 19 opposition deputies also signed a formal request to
Abkhaz Prosecutor-General Safarbey Mikanba and State Security Service
Chairman Yury Ashuba to convene a press conference and comment on
Bagapsh’s alleged accusations against Arshba, according to regnum.ru
on February 26. Regnum.ru also quoted Arshba as accusing the
republic’s authorities on February 26 in a televised campaign address
of slander, infringing on his constitutional rights, and trying to
"get rid of an inconvenient candidate."

Bagapsh admitted in a February 27 statement that he asked Arshba to
"take into account the importance" of Abkhazia’s Russian community
and not put forward his candidacy in a constituency where a Russian
was already registered. At the same time, Bagapsh insisted that his
sole consideration in making that request was to preclude interethnic
tension. He further affirmed his conviction that he had "the moral
right" to make such a request, and that it did not constitute a
violation of the constitution.

But in a seeming departure from his earlier appeal to the electorate
not to classify society in terms of "us and them," he went on to say
that "it seems we are pursuing different goals. One is left with the
impression that some opposition representatives are prepared to do a
great deal, including using the rostrum of the election campaign, in
order to slake their thirst to return to power and appease their
pathological desire to gain control once again over public property,"
apsnypress reported.

Accusations Exchanged

Georgian media have seized on the indications of rising tensions
between the Abkhaz authorities and opposition. Bagapsh’s spokesman
Kristian Bzhania rejected on February 27 as untrue Georgian media
reports of exchanges of fire in Sukhum(i) between supporters of
Bagapsh and Khadjimba.

Nonetheless, Abkhaz Interior Minister Otar Khetsia told Apsnypress on
February 28 that additional police will deployed to Gali Raion on
polling day to maintain calm. Bagapsh’s representative in Gali,
Ruslan Kishmaria, claimed that Georgian special services are
threatening to burn down the homes of any villagers who cast their
ballots in the March 4 poll.