We welcome the following election report from Professor Julie George of Queens College on the ongoing debacle in South Ossetia (a break-away republic of Georgia, currently recognized as an independent state by five countries: Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nauru, and Tuvalu). For those of you not quite familiar with where exactly South Ossetia is, we have helpfully included the following map as well!
For those of you not glued to your computer screens waiting for the next chapter of South Ossetia’s electoral saga, here’s a primer. The winner of the second round run-off of South Ossetian presidential elections to replace Eduard Kokity, Alla Dzhioyeva, a former education minister, was taken to the hospital on February 9 after she was detained by security forces. She had announced her inauguration for Friday, February 10 and would not desist, despite admonitions by government authorities. Her illness, characterized by some earlier as faked in the face of authorities, by others as the result of police violence, has been most recently announced as the result of hypertension leading to a (minor) stroke.
South Ossetia is one of two territories part of de jure Georgia that declared independence from the government there in the latter days of the Soviet Union and the first years of Georgian independent statehood (Abkhazia is the other). South Ossetia was the site of the 2008 conflict in Georgia that inspired John McCain to announce that although most Americans cannot find Georgia on a map that “we are all Georgians.” Ambiguities over territory and status abound in former communist space, with violence but no universally recognized resolution also in Transnistria/Moldova, Nagorno-Karabakh/Azerbaijan, and Serbia/Kosovo.
Set to embark on its third attempt in five months at electing a president on March 25, South Ossetia’s venture into contested politics parallels the experiences of other secessionist territories in former Soviet space. The first round of the presidential election, held on November 13, 2011 ended with no candidate getting the required majority (a first in de facto state politics until Transnistria’s election in December). The two top vote getters, Anatoly Bibilov (25.44%), the Minister of Emergency Situations and Dzhioyeva (25.37%) moved on to a second round on November 27. Dzhioyeva won that contest at 56.7%, only to have the results annulled by the Supreme Court due to allegations of election fraud. The Court further prohibited Dzhioyeva from running in the third contest. (The South Ossetian Central Electoral Commission had previously declared the elections valid.)
With the second round annulled, the electoral administration got set for a new round, even as Dzhioyeva declared her intentions to take presidential office (after an initial agreement with the ruling party to desist). With Bibilov opting not to run again (Russia’s new favorite is reportedly Dmitry Medoyev, South Ossetia’s envoy in Russia) and Dzhioyeva barred from running and now hospitalized, the third round bears little resemblance to the previous two contests, expect perhaps in its unpredictability.
Although Russia helped place Kokoity in power in 2001, the Kremlin appears eager to diminish his influence in favor of those less eager to skim off the top of the billions of Russian rubles pumped into the South Ossetian budget. In the first and second election rounds, Moscow supported Bibilov, admittedly an insider, who nonetheless advocated embezzlement investigations. Bibilov also advocated joining the Russian Federation, abandoning South Ossetia’s independence ambitions. (Just a few days ago, Russia, the WTO’s newest member, unveiled a free-trade regime of sorts with South Ossetia.)
Common themes in the Russian language coverage of the South Ossetian events are the eagerness of the South Ossetian officials to avoid the “threat of civil war” and to achieve “national reconciliation” to avoid the predicted “destabiliation” that an Orange-like revolution in Tskhinval(i) would bring. Supporters of the Russian regime have taken up similar rhetoric, even as opposition protests grow over Vladimir Putin’s anticipated third term.
South Ossetian elections have a great deal in common with fellow post-Soviet de facto states Abkhazia and Transnistria. Corruption concerns dominate the local conversation, as does the Russian role, perceived both as help and interference. The Transnistrian contest flung out the allegedly corrupt incumbent Igor Smirnov, but also rejected the Kremlin choice. Abkhazians faced a similar decision in 2004, when they opted for Sergei Bagapsh over Kremlin-supported Raul Khadjimba. What is notably not at issue in any of these political debates in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria is reuniting with Georgia or Moldova: all players are united in rejecting this option.