Interior Minister in Breakaway Abkhazia Suspended After Protests

Leader of breakaway Abkhazia, Raul Khajimba, had to suspend interior minister from office following opposition’s protests during which demonstrators tried to storm the Interior Ministry headquarters in Sokhumi.

Clashes outside the interior ministry on July 5 after which more than dozen of people required hospitalization, came just five days before the planned referendum to decide whether to call an early presidential election in the breakaway region.

Abkhaz leader Raul Khajimba signed on June 1 a decree to hold the referendum, less than three months after opposition filed a petition with the central election commission requesting calling of such a referendum.

But on July 5 supporters and members of opposition Amtsakhara party gathered at an outdoor rally and demanded from the authorities to postpone the referendum for autumn, claiming that there was not enough time to prepare the vote for July 10.

The opposition also demanded resignation of Interior Minister Leonid Dzapshba, criticizing him for a failure to fight crime and also accusing him of exerting pressure on the ministry employees not to participate in the referendum. More than half of the voters should participate in order for the referendum to be valid.

Dzapshba became embroiled in scandal late last month after a secretly made audio recording emerged in which the Interior Minister purportedly threatens ministry officials and employees that they would be sacked if they or their family members cast ballot in the referendum.

In other demands, the opposition also pushed for allowing voters with expired passports to cast ballot in the referendum and giving the opposition airtime on the state television channel on a regular basis, RFE/RL’s Russian-language Ekho Kavkaza reported.

The opposition party also called for opening polling stations in Moscow, as well as in Cherkessk, the capital city of Russia’s Karachay-Cherkess Republic, neighboring Abkhazia.

Meanwhile, supporters of the government were gathered at a separate rally outside the president’s office.

During the negotiations with the opposition representatives, the authorities agreed to meet some of protesters’ demands, but Khajimba was strongly against of delaying the referendum. When last month Khajimba was setting the date of the vote, he was saying that holding of the referendum itself was not opposition’s goal; he claimed that the opposition hoped he would have rejected the request for referendum to then use it as a pretext for street protests and “destabilization” – the assertion, which Khajimba also reiterated for number of times after the July 5 events in Sokhumi.

Several hundred protesters moved towards the Interior Ministry where they broke down a metal fence gate and broke into the perimeter of the ministry; police forces prevented protesters from storming the Interior Ministry premises itself.

According to the breakaway region’s healthcare minister, Andzor Goov, 19 people were hospitalized – three of them with gunshot wounds, including one employee of the state protection service, Abkhaz news agency, Apsnipress, reported. Goov also said that seven people remained in hospital as of July 6.

Standoff outside the Interior Ministry continued till late night and protesters dispersed only after they learned about Khajimba’s decision to temporarily suspend Interior Minister Leonid Dzapshba pending probe by the prosecutor’s office into allegations that he was exerting pressure on employees not to go to referendum.

“Today we are standing on the edge beyond which there is chaos and degradation,” Abkhaz leader Khajimba said in a written address to the nation on July 5.

He said that former governing political forces, which were engulfed in “lawlessness and corruption” while in power, are now driven by “revenge”, trying to “provoke disorders”.

“Actions of some political and public movements are directed towards destabilization, which could lead to destruction of our statehood,” Khajimba said.

In a separate address, made before his supporters outside the president’s office on July 6, Khajimba reiterated that he is not going to delay the referendum and it will be held as scheduled for July 10.

The authorities, however, met some other demands of the opposition, including allowing voters with expired passports to vote.