THE POLITICAL SCENE IN SOUTH OSSETIA: THE 2011-2012 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS AND WHAT BECAME OF THEM
Abstract
By mid-2011, the Republic of South Ossetia (RSO) was gradually sliding into the abyss of a political, social, and economic crisis. The people of South Ossetia had lost confidence in those who ruled them: the republican leaders were making too many mistakes, the republican elite were bogged in contradictions, while postwar rehabilitation was deliberately slowed down. This and the conviction, very popular in the Russian public (and even in the expert community), that the rehabilitation money was being shamelessly embezzled served as another argument in the political struggle raging in the RSO. Very much as usual, an external factor (in this case Russia) merely added to the far from simple situation. I have in mind certain bureaucrats accustomed to semi-military discipline and “gray practices.” Left alone to shift by itself the republic would have degenerated either into another devitalized “Oriental despotic state” (even if a tiny one) or, if the opposition came to power, into a small developing state with a democratic future.
By the November 2011 presidential election, the republic had reached a crossroads: President Eduard Kokoity was completing his second, and last, presidential term.1
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I covered in detail the prehistory of the presidential elections in South Ossetia in A.Yu. Skakov, “Yuzhnaya Os-setia nakanune prezidentskikh vyborov,” Kavkazskie nauch-nye zapiski, No. 2 (7), 2011, pp. 30-44.
[http://www.cisnews.org/news/5228-generalnyy-prokuror-hugaev-prestupnik-i-dolzhen-sidet-v-tyurme.html].
Shortly before the election he was described as “the leader of an organized criminal group” with its center in Vasilk-ov, a city in Ukraine (see [http://kavkaz.ge/2011/11/18/kto-takoj-anatolij-bibilov/] and other sites).
Art 30 of the Constitutional Law of RSO on the main guarantees of election rights and the right of citizens of the Republic of South Ossetia to take part in referendums says: “A voter or participant in a referendum should sign a sub-scription list indicating his last name, first name, and patronymic; date of birth; address of domicile; RSO passport se-ries and number and the date of its issue, as well as the date of subscription. Information about the voters signing the lists in support of a candidate or a list of several candidates may be written by the signature collector. All entries should be made by hand.”
It should be said in this connection that Sergey Vinokurov, Head of the Department of the Presidential Adminis-tration of the RF for Regional and Cultural Relations with other Countries, and his deputy Vladislav Gasumyanov (about him see [http://www.rospres.com/government/8918/, http://forum-msk.org/material/power/7246764.html] etc.), who were actively involved in the South Ossetian elections, were removed from their posts in April 2012 immediately after the highly dubious triumph of the presidential marathon in South Ossetia. Sergey Chebotarev, another hero of the election, who headed the department and, according to certain Internet resources, was responsible for carrying out instructions, became deputy head of the same department.
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