You're reading: Breakaway Georgian region elects president

SUKHUMI, Georgia (AP) — The election commission in the breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia says the vice president has won the presidential election.

Authorities on Saturday released preliminary figures that showed Alexander Ankvab had taken 55 percent of Friday’s vote.

The presidential election is the first in Abkhazia — sandwiched between the Black Sea and the Caucasus Mountains— since Russia recognized its independence in 2008 after the Russian-Georgian war.

Ankvab was running against two other seasoned politicians and veterans of the separatist war that Abkhazia waged against the Georgian government in the early 1990s that left hundreds dead and tens of thousands displaced.

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