Limited scope for opposition in Abkhazia

With less than two months to go before Abkhazia’s presidential elections, the main opposition candidate has accused the government of denying him equal access to the media and campaigning resources. Although Abkhazia is recognized as independent by Russia, the contested region is considered a rebel province of Georgia by most other countries.

The candidate, Raul Khadzhimba, told the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, or IWPR, that the actions of his rival, President Sergei Bagapsh, revealed that his talk of democracy was a lie. “The representatives of the government pronounce beautiful words about how there must be an opposition in the country, but at the same time they react very negatively to the opposition’s actions and its assessments of what is happening in the country. This does not give a positive image of the government,” Khadzhimba said.

“The opposition does not have the chance to speak on television. It does not have the chance to present its position in the state newspapers. There are barriers everywhere, which stops the opposition from appearing and this is done by the government. The government does not allow the opposition’s opinion to reach the whole population,” he said. Khadzhimba’s allegations are rejected by the government. Analysts suggest that the more serious problem facing the opposition is that Abkhazia’s political situation leaves very little room for maneuver, meaning that Khadzhimba will struggle to present policies distinct from Bagapsh’s.

The country is still devastated by the 1992-3 war in which Georgia lost control of Abkhazia, and the country is reliant on Russia for more than half of its budget, which limits its policies to the demands of Moscow. “All the political movements — including both the government and the opposition — speak about the need to build a law-based democratic state and a socially-orientated market economy, the significance of preserving the Abkhaz ethnic group and language, and the strengthening of ties with Russia,” said Arda Inal-Ipa, the co-director of the Center for Humanitarian Programs in Sukhumi. “A normal observer struggles to work out what the difference is between the main political forces. A clear and comprehensible difference is in the personnel, in the leaders and the makeup of the teams. I still hope the decisive factor in the elections will not be negative campaigning, but ideas and programs.”

Khadzhimba’s team secured a significant victory in forcing the government to backtrack on plans to grant Abkhazian citizenship to ethnic Georgians living in the eastern Gal region in August and created an impression that the authorities were pro-Georgian — an unpopular perception among the region’s non-Georgian majority. “This reminds many people of the situation in the elections of 2004, although the tactic did not work then. Sadly, we must conclude that our society is missing the chance of using the pre-electoral rise in political awareness to hold constructive discussions on the future of the country,” Inal-Ipa said.

Khadzhimba lost the 2004 election to Bagapsh, and served as vice president until earlier this year, through a post-election deal brokered by Russian officials after protests erupted. He now says that his initiatives were ignored by Bagapsh’s allies, but his previous closeness to the government is easily exploited to undermine his position as an opposition leader. “My personal attitude to him is positive, but he did not prove himself to be a good government figure,” said Marina Gumba, head of the pro-government political movement Amtsakhara. “Having headed the state security service, he now criticizes the crime rate. It is not right to blame someone else for this, without recognizing that the situation arose with his oversight. He said that nothing has been accomplished by the government, but in all these years he either served for or headed these departments. It is not right for a man who was the prime minister, vice president and head of the security service to behave this way.”