Interview by Maria Platonova, Sukhumi, exclusively to VK
This Saturday, on March 10, Abkhazia will hold parliamentary elections. 156 candidates will compete for 35 parliamentary seats. One of the candidates, ex-presidential aide Nadir Bitiyev, commented on the campaigning for “VK”.
- How would you characterize the present pre-election situation in the country?
- Over a hundred and fifty candidates, coinciding with elections in Russia and South Ossetia – to sum up, it’s pre-election anarchy.
- Does this situation open broad prospects for using administrative leverage?
- It’s hard to tell for the whole republic, but as far as I see administrative resources haven’t yet been brought into play. This situation is partially due to the recent presidential elections, so the authorities have undergone changes and it is still hard to see who is who, so to speak. Secondly, it is easy to misinterpret family support for use of administrative resources in our state.
- Do you expect public protests after the elections?
- I don’t think it’s possible: there are no administrative resources and falsifications are hardly likely. And there is no actual ruling group in Abkhazia to protest against yet.
- What is the Abkhaz Parliament like now?
- The acting board is at least ineffective. I think the parliament has three major functions: political, representative and lawmaking. At present, the first to function is not being fulfilled at all – the Parliament is totally dependent on the President. So the two branches of power – executive and legislative – are almost merged. Without a strong and efficient parliament the future of any people is under question.
- And how could the two merged branches of power be separated? What will make the parliament fully-grown?
- First of all, it requires careful tuning of domestic and foreign policy with one another. Some radicalize the question, saying that the policy can be either ‘pro-Russian’ or ‘pro-Western’. But I think we can learn a lot from both the West and Russia.
