South Ossetian President Edward Kokojty on November 12, 2006.
Photo: Valery Melnikov
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South Ossetia Ripped in Two
// Two Presidents for the Unrecognized Republic
Yesterday in Tskhinvali and in the Georgian village of Eredvi, preliminary results were returned in official and alternative presidential electionsm respectively, for South Ossetia. Voting on an independence referendum for the breakaway region also took place. According to the South Ossetian side, a little more than 50,000 votes were cast for President Edward Kokojty and for independence. Around 40,000 people voted for the pro-Georgian candidate, Dmitry Sanakoyev, and for negotiations concerning the breakaway region's reentry into Georgia. South Ossetia has thus effectively been split into two opposing camps. Kommersant special correspondent Olga Allenova has the details from Tskhinvali.
Celebrations of Edward Kokojty's victory began late in the evening on election day in Tskhinvali. His victory was also mentioned on Russian television. A large concert featuring salutes was held on Tskhinvali's central square, young people walked and drove around town flying the South Ossetian flag, and State Duma deputies and international observers congratulated President Kokojty in the Minas restaurant. On the tables were fruit and bottles of house wine, about which the president quipped, "drink up and don't be afraid – that wine has nothing in common with Georgian wine." Everyone drank up. State Duma Deputy Konstantin Zatulin presented Mr. Kokojty with a copy of Machiavelli's "The Prince," causing the president some embarrassment, and the Venezuelan delegation, who clearly liked the Ossetian wine, sang the revolutionary anthem "El pueblo unido, jamas sera vencido" ("A United People Will Never Be Defeated") in Mr. Kokojty's honor, eliciting general applause. "We have something in common with the Venezuelans," said Mr. Kokojty. "They, like us, are extremely unlucky with their neighbors." Venezuelan National Assembly deputy Luis Tascon Guiterrez declared that South Ossetia has earned the right to be independent, regardless of whether certain superpowers approve. "Our president, Hugo Chavez, was not recognized by the United States for a long time, but that didn't stop us from being free and getting our own way," said Mr. Guiterrez.
However, the mood elsewhere was not as optimistic.
Both Russian and South Ossetian politicians understand that the alternative elections, which were organized by the Georgian side, will frustrate Russia's plans to recognize South Ossetia as a free country after Kosovo gains similar recognition. The prevailing opinion is that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili stole a march on President Putin. News that was already circulating late last night caused particular concern among the politicans: the alternative central elections committee (CEC) announced that more than 40,000 people had cast votes in the alternative election. By morning that figure had grown to 47,000, and of those, according to data from alternative CEC chairman Uruzmag Karkusov, around 40,000 voted for former South Ossetian Prime Minister Dmitry Sanakoyev, the pro-Georgian candidate. That number is approximately half of the population of South Ossetia.
The South Ossetian CEC said yesterday that it is impossible that so many voters could be living in Georgian villages in South Ossetia. When Georgia held local elections in October of this year, around 15,000 people from South Ossetia voted. However, Mr. Karkusov told Kommersant that votes for the alternative candidate came chiefly from his native Javsky region in South Ossetia, near the Georgian-majority city of Eredvi, where secret polling stations were set up and ballots smuggled out of the region "by secret paths." The South Ossetian side is calling that a fiction, since the Javsky region, which is under the control of Edward Kokojty, hosted election observers who saw no evidence of alternative polling stations.
In the middle of the day yesterday, the South Ossetian CEC announced the preliminary results of its own referendum, in which 52,337 people participated. Out of these, 99% voted for independence for South Ossetia and 96% voted for President Kokojty. "Many observers were with us – 180 people from 11 countries – said CEC chairman Bela Pliyeva. "Not a single infraction of the rules was noted, and the reaction from all of the observers was positive." However, the observers did, in fact, have a few comments. Latvian parliamentary deputy Sergey Fedorov recommended that the ballots for the next election have envelopes, because each voter's choices were visible to everyone as they came to the ballot box, which violates the rule that ballots should be secret. However, Mr. Fedorov quickly asserted that such violations are minor and that they could not have influenced the overall result of the elections. "There was no excessive propaganda, and that was particularly heartening," said the deputy. "But the main thing that we saw here is that the population believes in its own right [to hold an election]." The Russian deputies also saw no voting irregularities. They noted long lines at the polling stations and said that they envy South Ossetia, because such active participation in elections has not been seen for a long time in Russia. "Every ballot was signed by all of the observers at the polling station – we don't even have that kind of procedure in Russia," said Russian State Duma Deputy Mikhail Babich, the deputy chairman of the Duma's defense committee.
The head of the alternative CEC cannot appeal to international observers. As Mr. Karkusov told Kommersant, observers and journalists simply failed to register to be observers of the alternate elections.
Nevertheless, an alternative government de facto exists, and nothing can stop it from moving in on Tskhinvali and appealing to the commander of the peacekeeping forces there, Murat Kulakhmetov, with a request to ensure the safety of the government in South Ossetia. Russian peacekeepers will then be in a difficult position, because they are not supposed to be in the business of deciding which government is legitimate and which is not. They also cannot refuse to help the alternative government. Each country will have to decide for itself which elections are legally illegitimate and which South Ossetian government is the real one. Russia, for example, will be talking with Edward Kokojty, but Georgia and the international community will be focusing on Dmitry Sanakoyev.
Those in Tskhinvali are certain that Russia will find some way to not only disavow the alternative elections but also to interfere with the alternative government if it tries to carry on negotiations as South Ossetia. They are saying that if Georgia recognizes Mr. Sanakoyev's government, "the situation with Russia may deteriorate to the point where Russia deploys troops to Tskhinvali in order to protect its own citizens." Russia may also choose to simply recognize Edward Kokojty's government, a possibility that the Russian deputies are not excluding. Yesterday Mr. Babich told Kommersant, "now they want to interfere with us following the example of Kosovo and recognizing South Ossetia. But we have never said that we will use Kosovo as an exact model. We have said that we will use the Kosovo precedent. If a citizen of Georgia who voted in the alternative elections wants to remain part of Georgia, he should go right ahead. But the citizens of South Ossetia want to remain with Russia; they want to be reunited with North Ossetia. Both the citizens of Georgia and the citizens of South Ossetia have the right to choose – let Georgia recognize its own citizens, and we will recognize ours. That is the Kosovo precedent in a nutshell."
Olga Allenova (South Ossetia)
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 14, 2006
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