The formation of the new Abkhazian government was completed with the appointment of the economy minister on October 28. He is David Iradyan, who has been working in the ministers’ cabinet of Abkhazia since 2005. It is a most unexpected step by the president: nobody guessed the name of the new minister. On the one hand, Iradyan has already gained a reputation as a professional economist. On the other hand, it is a strategic success for internal policy, as we remember that the main rival of Alexander Ankvab, Sergey Shamba, counted on young people and Armenians. Now one of the key positions in the government is taken by the 32-year old Armenian. Neither Vladislav Ardzinba nor Sergey Bagapsh dared to do it.
During the two months following the presidential elections, political tension decreased. October 2011 was the calmest month of the year. September, the month after the elections, wasn’t easy. A wave of emergency situations rolled across the republic: several big crimes and terrorist attacks. It is not accidental.
On August 27 Alexander Arshba, nephew of the well-known Moscow businessman Beslan Agrba, was kidnapped. Such crimes haven’t been committed in Abkhazia for several years. A few weeks later Arshba was freed, but it seems the kidnapping had a demonstrative character.
On September 2 the headquarters of the party of Georgian-Abkhazian war veterans, Amtsakhara (one of political forces, which supported Ankvab in the elections), was fired; on September 6 a school in the village of Primorskoe was set on fire; on September 12 there was an anonymous message that there was a bomb in the Sukhumi school №3. Later, two terrorist attacks were committed.
The chain of crimes stopped as unexpectedly as it began. None of them has been solved yet. What forces are involved in these emergency situations? It is difficult to say, but a similar situation took place in 2005 after Bagapsh was elected. That time, an attempt was made on Ankvab’s life. In 2006 and 2009 two more attempts were made. Ankvab’s enemies hinted that they were warning him. Now that he has become president, the situation is repeating itself. He promised to bring the republic to order, and the reaction will be aggressively negative.
The main event of autumn 2011 is the formation of the new government. The circumstances of this process show that Alexander Ankvab is acting carefully, and some of his supporters say that new appointments are a shift away from his pre-election promises. In his election program Ankvab expressed the reasonable idea that it is necessary to abolish some positions in the executive powers, such as vice-president and almost all the vice-premiers.
The idea of executive power reform has been discussed in Abkhazia for many years. The first idea was promoted by supporters of the parliamentary republic: formation of the government by the parliament. The second one s concerned limited abolition of posts, i.e. elimination of the vice-premiers’ positions and a “narrowing” of the presidential administration and the Cabinet. Thus, expectations were not fulfilled, as the scheme of a new Cabinet is exactly what it was under Sergey Bagapsh in 2005: the premier, three vice-premiers and 12 ministers. Only one of the vice-positions was eliminated.
However, we cannot say that Ankvab showed political conservatism. Following Bagaph’s tactics, he held on to appoint the Cabinet at one stroke. Ankvab preferred to remove from and appoint to positions ministers one by one three-four days apart.
In general, Alexander Ankvab as President demonstrates political experience and shows that he understands the difficulties he has to face. Of course, the current calm political conditions are a run-up to the election race for the parliamentary elections 2012. And these results are less predictable than the results of the presidential campaign. Ankvab decided not to take risks in such conditions. If his supporters win the elections, he will have more flexibility to conduct reforms of the executive power structures. At the moment Abkhazia can take a rest after a long period of political tension. However, it won’t last long.
Spartak Zhidkov, Sukhumi. Exclusively to VK.
