Editor’s note: The following analysis was produced by IHS Global Insight, a consultancy that provides analysis of the business conditions, economic prospects and risks in over 200 countries.
Run-off presidential elections in Georgia’s breakaway autonomous region of South Ossetia on 27 November ended with the surprise victory of the opposition candidate, former Education Minister Alla Dzhioyeva, only to be annulled by the Supreme Court which also banned the apparent winner from the new round of voting planned for March 2012.
Significance
Alla Dzhioyeva appeared to have won the election, reportedly securing 56.7% of votes and defeating the Kremlin-backed candidate Anatoly Bibilov.However, almost immediately after the vote South Ossetia’s Supreme Court annulled Dzhioyeva’s victory and barred her from taking part in the new election next March.
Implications
The South Ossetian authorities’ desperate and somewhat clumsy move to prevent Bibilov’s defeat is embarrassing for the region, which is striving to gain international recognition of its statehood. The decision contradicts international monitors, mainly from Russia and other former Soviet republics, who concluded that the election was held with minimal violations.
Outlook
Barring Dzhioyeva from the next election will deepen the political divisions in the breakaway republic, and weaken its ability to fight serious challenges such as pervasive corruption, crime and economic hardships. The move is also a setback for the people of South Ossetia and their drive to gain respect and recognition from the international community.
South Ossetian Election Crisis
The recent election for the highest post in South Ossetia, the autonomous region that has enjoyed de facto independence from Georgia for nearly two decades took two unexpected turns, sending the region into political turmoil.
The first round of voting on 13 November already gave clear indication that Emergency Situation Minister Anatoly Bibilov, backed by the outgoing president Eduard Kokoity and Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev was not going to have an easy victory. The reports on the results of the first round were contradictory, as some exit polls suggested that former Education Minister and the only female candidate, Alla Dzhioyeva, was leading.
But the final results published on the website of the Central Elections Commission gave 25.44% of the vote to Bibilov and 25.37% to Dzhioyeva in the first round.This led to the run-off election on 27 November which, according to exit polls and based on the results from 75 of 84 voting stations, gave a decisive lead to Dzhioyeva.
On 28 November, preliminary results were released confirming that Dzhioyeva was leading with 56.7% of the vote, compared to 40% for Bibilov. However, following complaints from Bibilov’s campaign team, South Ossetia’s Supreme Court ordered the region’s Central Election Commission to halt the release of the results of the second round.
The political crisis intensified as on the following day, 29 November, the same court decided to declare the election invalid, citing illegal actions by Dzhioyeva’s supporters. More strikingly, the court decided that Dzhioyeva’s supporters were a "threat" to voters and Dzhioyeva herself would be banned from the new round of voting to be held on 25 March 2012.
The decision by the Supreme Court triggered a wave of protests by Dzhioyeva’s supporters in the South Ossetia capital Tskhinvali and the situation remains tense. The former Education Minister herself called the decision by the Court a simple power grab. She slammed the verdict as illegal, arguing that not all the Supreme Court judges chose to take part in the extraordinary session.
Also, in an interview with Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Dzhioyeva stated that "all 15 members of the Central Election Commission signed the final election protocol," which confirmed her victory. She added that in the light of the Election Commission’s decision, "the actions of the chairman of the Supreme Court, Mr. [Atsamaz] Bichenov, must be seen as absolutely unconstitutional and illegal."
The Supreme Court decision is further compromised by overwhelming approval from international monitors, including Western experts, who did not flag major violations of voting procedures.The Georgian government, which lost de facto control over the region after the collapse of the Soviet Union two decades ago, dismissed the vote as illegal.
Georgian Reintegration Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili dismissed the ongoing crisis as "infighting between two mafia clans" for control over Russian aid money, as quoted by Agence France Presse (AFP). There has not been a clear reaction from Moscow.
Outlook and Implications
The drama unfolding in South Ossetia is a result of a number of factors but it is in no way reflective of anti-Russian sentiment in the region. Russia remains the key security guarantor for South Ossetia which saw its long-standing quest for independence endorsed by Russia back in August 2008 following a five-day war with Georgia. Since then only Venezuela, Nicaragua, and the Pacific Island of Nauru and Tuvalu have joined Russia in recognizing the region’s independence while the West is firmly backing Georgia’s territorial integrity.
The nervous reaction by the Supreme Court to act quickly and annul the election was mostly driven by an effort to save embarrassment for Moscow. After all, Medvedev endorsed Bibilov only a week before the vote, and not electing him looks like an act of defiance by the tiny region with only 70,000 population.
The timing of this outcome could also be damaging given that on 4 December Russia will hold its own elections to parliament. Bibilov was seen as a more pro-Kremlin candidate who grabbed attention of the voters in Ossetia and international observers by stating in his election campaign that unification with North Ossetia, a federal republic in the Russian Federation, in the future is inevitable.
Against the backdrop of Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin’s recent remarks that South Ossetia could join Russia, Bibilov’s statement gained more importance. It also triggered fears among supporters of South Ossetian independence that the top presidential candidate once elected could surrender their hard-earned independence from Georgia to Russia.
In contrast, Dzhioyeva did not make such statements, but that said, she and indeed neither of candidates have had anti-Russian rhetoric. This is reflective of the overwhelmingly positive view of Moscow in the autonomous region, which sees Russia is the sole guarantor of its security and economic stability.
So it came as no surprise that the South Ossetian voters endorsed the proposal put forward during the first round of election on 13 November to elevate Russian to status of state language. Moreover, Dzhioyeva was supported by another aspirant for the top post in the region, Dzhambulat Tedeev who has close ties with Russia having lived there for many years and coached the Russian national wrestling team.
The Central Election Commission barred Tedeev, who had fallen out previously with the current South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity, from running in the 2011 election. Last-minute changes to the election law prevented Tedeev from the race since he failed to meet a residency requirement as being the coach of the Russian national wrestling team he did not spend the past 10 years in the country.
A decisive factor in the recent vote has been the public’s deep discontent with the pervasive corruption in the region, including the misuse of Russian aid extended in recent years. South Ossetia is experiencing the same deep-rooted problems with corruption, nepotism and clan politics as Russia’s North Caucasian federal republics.
However, given the importance for Russian foreign policy that South Ossetia and Abkhazia carry as Moscow continues to push for more international recognition of the breakaway regions, having less corrupt regimes in both regions is indeed in Moscow’s interest.
While the Russian authorities have been open as to who they would like to see elected in South Ossetia, nonetheless they took a hands-off approach, realising that the region is a difficult one given the specifics of clan politics. Some domestic and international observers have noted that by backing Bibilov, whose main message was an active campaign against corruption, Moscow was hoping to get rid of the current Kokoity government, which has been badly compromised by allegations of corruption and crime.
However, Kokoity’s support for Bibilov could have done him a disservice as some voters chose to demonstrate their discontent with Kokoity’s regime by voting against the candidate that it backed. That said the clan politics should not be discounted either. In the case of Dzhioyeva, she certainly managed to capture votes that otherwise would have gone to Tedeev, an influential and well connected figure in the region, who was rumoured to have been promised a high-ranking position if Dzhioyeva won.
The clear division among the South Ossetian voters is a sign of competing allegiances shaped by clan ties but also political beliefs. It is also a strong signal to the next leader of the region that lingering corruption and nepotism issues and lack of strong rule of law is what will ultimately drive the public vote. This task has gotten much harder for the future de facto president for South Ossetia as he or she will have to try to reconcile the two opposite camps.
