Leader of Abkhaz opposition Bzhania hospitalized again

The leader of the Abkhaz opposition Aslan Bzhaniya has been hospitalized again.

It is not yet known whether this is a relapse of olintoxication or new poisoning.

The presidential candidate put forward by the united Abkhaz opposition took ill on Monday morning when he returned to his homeland from Moscow with a one-day stop in Krasnaya Polyana. 

He was hospitalized in the Sochi city hospital.

In Abkhazia, there were reports that Bzhania fell into a coma.

However, commenting on this information, Alexander Ankvab, who heads the headquarters of Bzhania, said that Bzhania’s condition is stable.

“He was put into an artificial coma to allow the body to rest. If there is new information, we will  inform,” he said.

At the end of last week, Aslan Bzhania was in Moscow, where he met with the Abkhaz diaspora, and also gave a press conference at the Russian news agency Interfax.

•Abkhazia closes itself off from everyone except Russia

•Leaders of presidential race in Abkhazia unite – rivals may follow suit

In mid-April 2019, the leader of the Abkhaz opposition, Aslan Bzhania, was hospitalized in a critical condition in a Moscow clinic and later transported to Berlin.

According to analyses performed in Germany, he was poisoned: a large concentration of mercury, cadmium and aluminum was found in the blood of the opposition leader.

Then in Abkhazia, few doubted that the sudden illness was directly related to the presidential elections held in September 2019. 

Due to his state of health, Bzhania did not participate in the September elections, but he was going to run for the next presidential election, due in late March. Adgur Ardzinba, deputy prime minister of the Abkhaz government, and Leonid Dzapshba, former interior minister, are still participating in them.

However, it is possible that the presidential election scheduled for March 22 will be on the verge of collapse. Already now, the main rival of Bzhania in the presidential election, Adgur Ardzinba, in connection with the hospitalization of the opposition leader, announced that he was suspending the campaign.