Referendum on confidence in the president in Abkhazia canceled

Confidence referendum canceled

In Abkhazia the initiators of a referendum on confidence in the president have abandoned the idea, although they say that 10 thousand signatures necessary for the referendum have been collected.

The referendum on confidence in President Aslan Bzhania was initiated by Aiaaira – an opposition organization. Its leader, Vianor Ashba, has been demanding voluntary resignation from the president for over a year, as he has not fulfilled his election promises.

In July, having failed to get Bzhaniye to leave “amicably”, Ashba and Aiaair decided to influence the president through a referendum on confidence. Other opposition organizations virtually ignored the idea.

Meanwhile, the Central еlection сommittee registered the application, issuing signature sheets to the initiative group. And now Aiaaira says it has collected the necessary number of signatures to hold a referendum, but is abandoning the idea because the republic is running out of time.  

“In the case of submission of signature sheets to the CEC, the procedure is as follows – another month is given to the CEC to review the signatures and adopt the final protocol, two weeks are given to the president to set the date for the referendum, which should take place within three months.

However, recent events show that we do not have these three-four months, because with the support of Aslan Bzhania a wild expansion of oligarchic and mafia castes has begun.

Resources are being sold off at an accelerated pace.

These four months will be enough for the authorities to realise their intentions to destroy our country,” reads the official statement of the Supreme Council of “Aiaair”.

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Aiaaira says that since the registration of its initiative group, the authorities have signed and then ratified an unfavourable agreement with Moscow, on the basis of which “the airport named after V. Ardzinba was transferred to the ownership of private individuals on crippling conditions”.

“The country’s energy system, state dacha Pitsunda, Kodori Gorge nature reserve are next in line. A special danger for the future of Abkhazia is also the draft law on apartments, which is clearly lobbied personally by President Aslan Bzhania.”

In these circumstances Aiaair sees the main task as uniting and stopping the process of selling off Abkhazia:

“Therefore, we declare that we abandon the idea of holding a referendum and move to active actions aimed at preservation of Abkhazia.”

What exactly “active actions” mean, Aiaaira does not explain.

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