Amidst reports of gunfire, a homegrown controversy over breakaway South Ossetia's de facto presidential election on November 30 threatened to degenerate into violence.
To most of the outside world, the November 13 poll in South Ossetia was illegitimate to begin with, but it sparked a major power struggle. Alla Jioyeva, a onetime education minister, has claimed the presidency following a runoff that gave her over 56 percent of the vote.
But the Kremlin-backed candidate Anatoliy Bibilov, alleging funny business, wasn't buying it. Bibilov petitioned the region's de facto Supreme Court to throw out the results. On November 29, the court complied, with the de facto parliament setting a fresh election date in March 2012.
Jioyeva, however, went ahead and set up a "state council," and headed with her supporters (numbering in the high several hundreds, according to Russia's RIA Novosti) out into the streets of Tskhinvali, South Ossetia's capital, to protest the court's decision.
In response, the de facto government led by Eduard Kokoity accused Jioyeva of attempts to stage a "color revolution" -- an event portrayed within South Ossetia as the ultimate in dastardly deeds -- and threatened to take retaliatory measures. Apparently, those were limited to guards firing into the air as the Joiyeva crowd approached the de facto government headquarters, and tried to enter the region's de facto Central Election Commission.
Jioyeva, at last report, has given Kokoity one day to "resolve the situation," and dispatched a plea to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin not to allow South Ossetia to plunge into civil war. Bibilov, meanwhile, has expressed willingness to sit down and talk.
Granted, since the 2008 war with Georgia, Russia has styled itself as the protector and promoter of South Ossetia’s independence, but it's not exactly a disinterested international election observer in this situation. The Kremlin has called on all sides in the “young republic” to respect the decision that cancelled the election results -- a decision that just happens to favor its man, Bibilov.
Touchée, Jioyeva? Looks like not yet.
Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist based in Tbilisi, and author of Tamada Tales.
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