26 Aug Sukhum celebrates eight years since the recognition of Abkhazia by Russia. Today, however, partially recognized country is going through a difficult period. The President of Abkhazia Raul Khajimba is trying to suppress anti-government sentiment reassignment in the manual. However, the main challenge facing Abkhazia today is to establish a dialogue within society.
August 26 — the date, designed “to remain as one of the most iconic in the modern history of Abkhazia”, said the foreign Minister of the partially recognized Republic of Abkhazia Vyacheslav Chirikba. On this day in 2008, there was diplomatic recognition by Russia of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
“The dream of generations of Abkhazians, which seemed to many impossible, became a reality. We all remember the emotional state that prevailed in Abkhazia on 26 August,” — said Chikirba at the “round table” dedicated to the eighth anniversary of the recognition of Abkhazian independence. Most of the participants spoke about the successes achieved during this time.
However, the official Sukhum is experiencing not the best period. Abkhazia is in the grip of a long-term political confrontation, which affects its economy and social life.
If in the West, the resort areas are still under construction, there are new hotels, the South of Sukhum, the capital of the country, it is impossible to hide the depressed areas with the half-empty cities.
The specificity of the Abkhazian policy is determined by a small population with a very intimate human relationships. This largely explains the difficulty with the judicial system: when “all his” even criminals get away from punishment.
“Of Abkhazia, traditionally there is a tendency to “popular sovereignty” based on the fact that the power available for dialogue. For this submission there is every reason: the elite, presidents and Prime Ministers together for weddings and funerals, participate in the feasts at the table, ” says the Dean of the faculty of history southern Federal University in Rostov-on-don Nikolay trapsh, was. — Gives ordinary people the feeling that the right amount of pressure on the authorities, and will be adopted the necessary decisions”.
According to the expert, that skillfully uses a certain part of the Abkhazian society that is aware of its impact and not want to change the current clan system. Meanwhile, judging by recent events in Abkhazia, the current system of government, personified by President Raul Khajimba, causes irritation at the growing number of people.
The referendum as a diagnosis
In early July, the country held protests on the issue of a referendum on early presidential elections. The opposition claimed that the authorities do not allow it to wage a campaign against Khadzhimba, and demanded to postpone the referendum in the fall. The government concessions did not go.
5 July meeting about the transfer of the popular vote has outgrown in mass riots. The demonstrators tried to storm the interior Ministry building and demanded the resignation of interior Minister Leonid Dzapshba because of the deteriorating crime situation in the country. Officials also blamed what he called his subordinates by any means to disrupt the referendum to dismiss the President. The evening in Sukhum skirmish on the ground of political confrontation. Injured 19 people.
Khajimba went to a modest but concessions. He was suspended the Dzapshba. However, the referendum to dismiss the President was held at the scheduled time and was expected to fail. The turnout made up 1.23% of the population.
July 26, the resignation of Prime Minister Arthur Kobakhia. It was replaced by the first Deputy Prime Minister Shamil Adzinba. After the Parliament suspended the attorney General of the Republic of Alexei Lomiu. The President of Abkhazia Raul Khajimba said that the resignation Miquelii is not associated with the demands of the opposition.
In August Khajimba continued shuffling. Dzapshba, the recent Minister of internal Affairs, became an adviser to the President on interaction with law enforcement. He was appointed Deputy Prime Minister and interior Minister, Aslan Kobakhia, who was elected to the deputies of Abkhazia four years ago, under President Alexander Ankvab. It Khajimba decades considered, the main political rival. The current President has received this post in 2014 and obviously doesn’t want to abandon it.
“Trying hard for the suspension of the political elite instantly generate protests: Abkhazia is a small country, everyone knows each other, and a power solution in this case will be the wick to a powder keg,” — said trapsh, was.
The Kremlin to help
Without a working legal system is one of the key obstacles to establishing political stability. Although the government has made various efforts to return life in the legal framework, while this work is at an early stage. For example, judges recently get very high on the Abkhazian standards salaries up to 50 thousand rubles per month. Perhaps this will allow the judiciary to become less corrupt and more independent, including from pressure of officials.
“That in Abkhazia there is a serious gap between the legal regulations and considerations of practical expediency, said the late Sergei Bagapsh [the President of the Republic from 2004 to 2011], and since then little has changed, — says analyst Sergei Markedonov, an expert on the regions of the Caucasus. — Abkhazia lacks strategic vision and consistency — and again we come to that state is impossible to build without the representation in government of different interest groups: it will be a constant conflict, provoking internal instability”.
Russian-Abkhazian relations are also affected by political turmoil. In Moscow, obviously does not understand why the political class in such local conditions so long you can not find a compromise.
An important story of Russian-Abkhazian relations are money. One of the main complaints that opposition expressed to the leadership Khadzhimba, is his inability to inspire confidence in the Kremlin and, accordingly, to keep the flow of financial investments.
However, the real volume of funds under investment programs financed from the Russian budget, grow. By the end of next year, the amount is 9 billion rubles, half must be spent within this year. Quite a few days to travel around the country to understand how the money needed Republic. Infrastructure in poor condition, it is obvious that in the next decade, domestic resources for its restoration would not be here.
The Russian presidential aide Vladislav Surkov at the last meeting with President of Abkhazia Raul khadjimba in Gagra stressed the importance of the Abkhazian direction of the Kremlin. “Next year, our investment program will be an unprecedented dear, — he stressed. –Such a large investment budget of Abkhazia never from Russia did not receive”.
“Russia’s difficult economic situation, in fact, the budget has undergone a revision, was reduced virtually all expenditure items, except for the cost of interaction with the Republic of Abkhazia”, — said Surkov.
But since then, as had recognized the independence of Abkhazia, the main plot of the struggle for power is control over the money. To 2012-2013 Moscow invested in the existing model of government of the country, relying on the fact that it can be reanimated at the expense of financial injections. However, in recent years, the strategy is different.
The aim of the current investment on the one hand, to reduce social and economic tensions due to the payment of salaries and pensions, and on the other hand, contribute to the revival of most of the Abkhazian economy.
“You can’t drift. If Abkhazia wants to be a full economic appendage of Russia, it should propose its own initiatives, Markedonov says. “Russia also needs to create some motivation. Not enough to create a system of control of expenditure, there should also be incentives for the effectiveness of this process.”
The second line
Russia considers the black sea region not just as a border territory, and as strategically important for its national interests in the region. Moscow seeks to create a “defensive shield” on the border of Abkhazia with Georgia because of the August 2008 conflict. The Kremlin has argued this idea after the Ukrainian conflict and the transfer of Crimea to Russia in 2014. Abkhazia and South Ossetia in this sense, the second most important line of the Russian foreign policy identity.
After the loud attempts of sabotage in the Crimea, which happened in this month, Moscow is especially interested in the decriminalization of the situation in Abkhazia. This is the most complex site in the Russian-Abkhazian relations.
It is important to prevent criminal schemes whose victims are citizens of Russia. We are talking about the turnover of real estate in Abkhazia: the current prohibition on purchase by Russians of residential real estate has created a criminal market, the preservation of which in the interests of criminal groups affiliated with the middle and grass-roots corrupt officials.
In Abkhazia the housing for the Russians, also become the raw material for political speculation. In a small country, the threat of loss of sovereignty will always be the “pain point”, which crushed and Abkhaz politicians trying to boost their ratings. They try to convince the public that the Russian initiatives in one way or another to limit the sovereignty.
To listen to these slogans largely due to the long isolation of the Abkhazian political environment. People have not had the opportunity to observe and analyze the integration processes in the past two decades.
“Abkhazia itself has to formulate the agenda which could be interesting from the point of view of national interests of Abkhazia, and from the point of view of national interests of Russia. One of the first items of this agenda is the connection of Abkhazia to integration projects, — reminded in the recently held in Sukhum “the round table” the Abkhaz political scientist Leyla Taniya, the Director General of the Agency of the Abkhaz black sea-Caucasian development. — For us, of course, is of interest, the Eurasian Union, and we have long had to declare his interest, his connection to this project in any capacity. At least as a dialogue partner or observer at this stage. But officially we have such statements did not”.
Russia is extremely interested in the fact that Abkhazia “all out”. And it is unlikely that hurt to implement infrastructural and economic projects financed by the Russian side. But since the topic of relations with Russia will always be one of the first in the Abkhaz domestic political agenda, the objective for both sides is to make it so that it does not become a ground for the emergence in the country of anti-Russian sentiment.
