RFE/RL: Abkhaz Prosecutor Warns Former Vice President
posted by circassiankama on September, 2009 as Abkhazia
September 16, 2009
Abkhaz Prosecutor Warns Former Vice President
The Abkhaz prosecutor's office on September 15 accused
former Vice President Raul Khadjimba of seeking in recent statements to
discredit the republic's law enforcement agencies in general and the
prosecutor's office in particular.
Speaking at a conference of the war veterans' union Aruaa, Khadjimba had openly challenged the official explanation for the arrest in late June of Aruaa member Colonel Valmer Butba.
A
former career KGB officer who subsequently served as Abkhaz defense
minister (2001-03) and then prime minister (2003-04), Khadjimba ran
against Sergei Bagapsh in the 2004 presidential election with the overt
backing of Moscow. Bagapsh defeated Khadjimba in the first round,
triggering an armed standoff between supporters of the two rival
candidates that was defused by senior Russian officials who succeeded
in persuading the two men to run as a team in a repeat ballot in January 2005.
But
as vice president, Khadjimba became increasingly critical of, and
distanced himself from, Bagapsh's policies. He finally resigned in late
May and is expected to run against Bagapsh in the presidential election
due in December -- assuming the statement by the prosecutor's office is
not the first move towards barring him from the ballot.
Speaking at a press conference in early June, Khadjimba explained the motives for his resignation.
He accused Bagapsh of having done nothing over the previous four years
to reform local government or increase the effectiveness of the law
enforcement agencies, and of blocking initiatives and proposals by his
subordinates, and he argued the need for constitutional amendments that
would redefine the powers of the parliament and prime minister.
At
the same time, Khadjimba denied any presidential ambitions. He said he
planned to consult with all opposition forces on creating a team
capable of extracting the republic from the current situation.
In late August, Khadjimba told the Russian daily "Vremya novostei"
that "from day one," the provisions of his power-sharing agreement with
Bagapsh were not fulfilled. He further implied that Bagapsh repeatedly
sought to belittle the opposition and rejected the very concept of
dialogue with opposition parties.
And he criticized the recent agreements
under which Abkhazia ceded to Russia for 10 years control of its
railways, and granted Rosneft the right to prospect for oil and gas in
its offshore waters. According to Khadjimba, LUKoil earlier turned down
an offer to exploit those reserves because the oil is of such poor
quality that doing so would not be economically viable.
Khadjimba
played a prominent role in the opposition protests last month that
culminated in the parliament appealing to Bagapsh not to sign the controversial amendments
to the citizenship law that the parliament adopted on July 31. The
opposition objections to those amendments centered on plans to grant
Abkhaz citizenship to Georgians living in Abkhazia's southernmost Gali
Raion, which the opposition construed as a ploy by Bagapsh to win
Georgian votes. (Of Abkhazia's 129,000+ registered voters, some 14,000,
most of them Georgians, live in Gali.)
Bagapsh responded
to the parliamentary appeal not to sign the amendments into law by
setting up an ad hoc commission that concluded that the amendments
"contained imprecise formulations" and should therefore be reworked.
That process is unlikely to be completed before the December ballot.
The
fact that Khadjimba was one of a group of Abkhaz oppositionists who met
with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin when Putin visited Sukhumi
in mid-August gave rise to speculation that Russia might again back
Khadjimba's candidacy in the December presidential ballot. But that
election will not be a two-horse race. Businessman and media mogul
Beslan Butba, who founded the Economic Development Party of Abkhazia
two years ago, has indicated he will run.
In a recent interview,
Butba claimed that opinion polls he has commissioned show a drastic
drop in support for Bagapsh from the 85 percent approval rating he
enjoyed one year ago in the wake of Russia's formal recognition of
Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states. Butba claimed that
he, Bagapsh, and Khadjimba currently have very similar approval
ratings, but did not cite figures.
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