In the third and final reading on December 28, the Georgian parliament passed controversial amendments to the law on political parties, banning their financing by legal entities, including commercial organizations.

Those changes have been widely construed as intended specifically to preclude the funding of opposition parties by billionaire philanthropist Bidzina Ivanishvili, who announced three months ago his intention of coming to power in the parliamentary elections due in October 2012. 

But that apparent attempt to sideline and hamstring the opposition was not the only reason for widespread criticism of the new regulations.

Georgian opposition parties have demanded a formal investigation into the legality of subsequent changes in the final text that raised questions over whether or not key provisions are retroactive.

The opposition has also questioned the rationale for the transfer of responsibility for verifying parties' compliance with the new legislation from the Central Election Commission to a specially created unit of the Audit Chamber.

As summarized by the websites civil.ge and kavkaz-uzel.ru, the new provisions ban corporate donations, but raise the maximum amount an individual may donate to a political party from 30,000 to 60,000 laris ($18,003-$36,006).

​​If a group of individual donors share a single source of income, however, (if, for example, they are employed by the same company), their aggregate donation in any given year may not exceed 500,000 laris.

Parties that have received funding exceeding the amount specified by the amendments are required to return that money to the donor within three days of the amendments coming into force.

Otherwise, it will be confiscated and paid into the state budget. Four political parties aligned with Ivanishvili -- the Republican, Conservative, and People's parties,  and Our Georgia-Free Democrats -- are known to have accepted a little over 4 million laris over the past two months from 12 different companies, 10 of them associated with Ivanishvili, according to civil.ge.

Moreover, in order to prohibit vote-buying, the amendments make it illegal for political parties or legal entities directly or indirectly connected with them to offer financial or material inducements to prospective voters.

U.S. Concerns

According to civil.ge, the law as voted on specifies that the amendments are retroactive, meaning that political parties would have to forfeit unspent donations. The website later quoted parliamentarian Koba Khabazi as confirming after the December 28 vote that that provision was added to the text after he raised it during the debate the previous day.

The U.S. Embassy questioned that restriction on December 29, issuing a statement expressing concern "that retroactive application of certain campaign finance provisions would reinforce existing imbalances in political competitiveness."

Legislators from the ruling United National Movement immediately denied that the ban on corporate finding was retroactive.

Parliamentary Committee for Legal Affairs Chairman Pavle Kublashvili said later on December 29 that the law "has no retroactive effect whatsoever; not a single political union will be held responsible for having received donations legally [before the new regulations came into force]."

The version of the law subsequently posted on Sakanonmdeblo Matsne, the state online registry of legal acts, reads "parties that have received funding in violation of the law" (not "of this law") must return it.

Anger And Indignation

Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Akaki Minashvili went on record on December 30 as denying that the retroactivity clause was rephrased after the law was voted on in response to the implicit U.S. criticism.

Republican Party head Davit Usupashvili called on December 30 for the prosecutor general's office to open a formal investigation into what he termed the illegal "doctoring" of the text of the law after its passage.

The Justice Ministry then published an edict empowering the state registry on legal acts to make any required "editorial changes" to the text of the legislation. But Tatuli Todua of the Association of Young Jurists explained to RFE/RL that the registry is empowered only to correct orthographic and punctuation errors, and that the primary purpose of subjecting draft laws to a third reading is to ensure that the final version does not contain any such errors.

"For Free Elections" chairman Irakli Melashvili told RFE/RL that enacting such sensitive legislation between Christmas and New Year, when many foreign diplomats and representatives of international organizations are on vacation, is standard operating procedure for the Georgian legislature.

Despite their anger and indignation, Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream movement, Our Georgia-Free Democrats leader Irakli Alasania and People's Party leader Koba Davitashvili have all affirmed their readiness to provide the Audit Chamber with the required financial information, according to the Caucasus Press news agency on January 5.

What impact the new restrictions will have is difficult to predict. Even before they were passed, the Council of Europe's Venice Commission expressed its fear that "if there is no adequate level of state subsidies for political parties, the banning of corporate funding coupled with strict disclosure provisions may create difficulties for political parties to fundraise." The Commission therefore recommended "revisit[ing] the broad prohibition of corporate donations to party finances."

Over the past two months, the leadership of Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia has adopted two separate measures aimed at ensuring greater diversity of broadcast media.

In early November, de facto President Aleksandr Ankvab personally signed a decree granting the private TV station Abaza permission to broadcast republic-wide. Abkhazia's sole independent TV broadcaster, Abaza was founded four years earlier by Beslan Butba, the wealthy businessman who chairs the Party of Economic Development of Abkhazia (PERA). Until now, its broadcasts have reached only Sukhumi and the surrounding area.

Butba first sought to expand broadcasting republicwide in the run-up to the December 2009 presidential election, but without success. Butba placed fourth in that ballot with 7.9 percent of the vote. PERA, initially in opposition to the leadership of then President Sergei Bagapsh, shifted in early 2010 to a more moderate, centrist position because, Butba argued, the polarization between Bagapsh's United Abkhazia party and the radical opposition Forum of National Unity of Abkhazia headed by Bagapsh's erstwhile vice president, Raul Khajimba, hindered the ongoing democratization that was one of PERA's priorities.

​​Khajimba, who lost to Ankvab in the August vote to elect a successor to Bagapsh, was the moving force behind the second measure: the creation of a working group tasked with revitalizing the output of Abkhaz state TV and radio.

Both the Forum of National Unity and other opposition parties have long sought to expand and revamp TV and radio broadcasting in such a way as to promote a far greater plurality of views, including their own. In May 2010, Khajimba and 23 other opposition politicians addressed an open letter to Bagapsh, parliament speaker Nugzar Ashuba, and then Prime Minister Sergei Shamba in May 2010 advocating the introduction on both state TV and radio of a two-hour weekly program in which political parties and movements and independent journalists would participate; the creation of a Public Council that would oversee the state broadcasters; and setting up a public broadcaster. They also demanded Butba's Abaza TV be granted a license to broadcast republicwide.

State information service head Kristian Bzhania conceded at a press conference a few weeks later that state TV's programming "could be better" and that "we rarely get the chance to watch programs that satisfy our interest and curiosity." But no fundamental effort was undertaken to improve the situation.

In late October 2011, Khajimba sent another open letter, this time to Ankvab, de facto Prime Minister Leonid Lakerbaia, and the acting director of Abkhaz state TV. At that juncture, Ankvab had already dismissed Guram Amkuab, who had headed state TV and radio for 15 years, and of whom independent journalist Inal Khashig commented to RFE/RL's Echo of the Caucasus, "he always tried to make himself useful to whomever was in power by faithfully reflecting the official line."

Khajimba complained that the management of state TV routinely ignored all the opposition's demands for more extensive and in-depth coverage of pressing political, socioeconomic, legal, demographic, and other issues, including corruption. He called for the creation of an independent public council that would advise the management of state TV on programming priorities and promote and act on feedback from viewers and listeners.

Ankvab duly summoned Khajimba and other opposition representatives to discuss Khajimba's complaints and proposals, but he drew the line at creating the public council Khajimba wanted. Instead, he set up a "working group" headed by Bzhania that includes five senior state TV and radio officials, including Amkuab's successor, Alkhas Cholokua, and a couple of independent journalists. That group is to formulate its reform proposals by March 1 -- too late for them to be implemented during the run-up to the parliamentary elections on March 10.

The Georgian parliament voted on December 27 in the third and final reading to endorse a new draft Electoral Code intended to replace the one adopted in 2001, which has since undergone no fewer than 46 amendments.   

The new code fails, however, either to address perennial criticisms by successive international election-observation missions, or to incorporate proposals by opposition parties aimed at ensuring a fairer distribution of mandates that might undercut the ruling party's large parliamentary majority.

In addition, the parliament ignored the most crucial recommendations by the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe's expert legal body, to which the draft was submitted for comment. The European Union and the United States have both expressed regret that the new law does not adequately address "perceptions of inequality within the electoral system."

The procedural and logistical shortcomings in Georgia's electoral system were discussed in detail in the final report by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) Election Observation Mission on the May 2008 Georgian parliamentary elections.

They include campaigning by government officials for the ruling party; inaccurate voter registers that open the door to absentee and multiple voting; errors in the counting and tabulation of ballots; lack of transparency in acting on complaints; and huge discrepancies between the numbers of voters in individual single-mandate constituencies that according to the Venice Commission "undermine the principle of equality of suffrage."

Talking To The Opposition

The ruling United National Movement (EEM) duly embarked in late 2010 on talks with a loose coalition of eight opposition parties on how to amend the law.

But the talks proved acrimonious and unproductive. The EEM refused to accept as a basis for discussion successive written proposals by the "Opposition 8," including their innovative approaches to ensuring that the number of mandates, both proportional and majoritarian, that a party receives corresponds as closely as possibly to the percentage of votes cast for it under the proportional system.

The EEM similarly categorically rejected, on the grounds that it would cost too much, the opposition's demand for the introduction nationwide of biometric passports to preclude multiple voting.

Finally, in late June, two of the eight opposition parties engaged in the talks endorsed new proposals by the EEM that partially addressed some, but not all, the problem issues. Specifically, the EEM proposed increasing the total number of parliament mandates from 150 to 190, of whom 107 would be elected from party lists and the remaining 83 in single-mandate constituencies. President Mikheil Saakashvili subsequently claimed that increase, which he said he personally opposed, constituted a concession to the opposition, although the "Opposition 8" never proposed it.

​​In lieu of biometric identity documents, the EEM advocated creating a special commission composed of equal numbers of representatives of the authorities, NGOs, and those political parties that accept the EEM proposals to check the accuracy of voter lists to preclude the casting of ballots on behalf of persons deceased or living abroad. And as an inducement to other opposition parties to endorse the new code, any party that did so and subsequently polled at least 5 percent of the vote in the parliamentary elections due in October 2012 would qualify for 1 million laris ($600,000) from the state budget to cover election-related expenses.

Even after other opposition parties agreed to the EEM's proposal, the truncated "Opposition 6" continued to lobby for the introduction of biometric passports, Rustavi-2 reported on August 1. They cited an estimate by the IT company Smartmatic that such passports could be distributed nationwide within four to six months at a cost of some $8 million. By comparison, President Saakashvili's latest mega-project, the planned construction of a new city, Lazika, on Georgia's Black Sea coast, will cost an estimated $900 million over the next 10 years.

NGO Criticism

The new draft Electoral Code was sent to parliament in September and immediately drew criticism from three watchdog groups. In a joint statement, the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy; the Georgian Young Lawyers Association; and Transparency International-Georgia affirmed that "the draft does not introduce substantial changes for improving the election environment. In contrast, sometimes articles of the code even worsen the situation or unspecified norms complicate understanding of various formulations."

In that context, they specifically referred to the provision in the new draft permitting regional governors (in addition to their deputies and local mayors) to engage in electioneering. They argued that this runs counter to international demands to reduce the potential for the use by officials of "administrative resources" to ensure a victory for the ruling party's candidates.

The three organizations also objected to the proposed commission to verify the accuracy of voter lists. They said the Civil Registry Agency is both more experienced and better qualified to undertake that task. That objection has been ignored.

They argued that the Georgian Constitution requires that any proposed increase in the total number of parliament deputies be put to a national referendum. They pointed out that such an increase would not per se rectify the discrepancy in the size of individual constituencies that, they said, should be no greater than 15-20 percent.

They deplored the abolition of two measures intended to preclude multiple voting: video surveillance inside polling stations (which the Venice Commission had said some voters may find intimidating) and the use of indelible ink to mark voters' fingers.

Further criticisms focused on less stringent requirements in the new draft code for selecting members of election commissions, and the restrictive procedures for appealing perceived electoral violations.

Venice/ODIHR Decry Omissions

The Venice Commission, whose members visited Tbilisi in late October to discuss the draft with both the authorities and opposition parties, likewise criticized individual provisions of the new code, including some singled out by the three NGOs. A joint Venice Commission/ODIHR assessment made public last month called for revising and clarifying the sections dealing with the use of administrative resources to ensure that "public officials" and "persons holding office" be explicitly prohibited "from directly or indirectly using administrative resources, and from engaging in electoral campaign activities on behalf of any party/candidate."

The joint assessment enumerated several recommendations made earlier by the two organizations that were not addressed in the new draft. It termed residency requirements -- five years for presidential and 10 years for parliamentary candidates -- "overly long." It called for the abolition of the additional requirement that parliamentary candidates speak Georgian fluently, and of the prohibition on persons deemed drug-dependent on running for parliament. (The criteria for determining "dependency" were deemed imprecise.)

The joint assessment further deplored the "lack of effective mechanisms to facilitate the participation of women in elections," noting that Georgia has the lowest percentage (6.5 percent) of female members in the lower chamber of parliament of any OSCE member state.

It also called for the lifting of the "problematic" ban on foreign citizens participating in election campaigns.

Minor Changes Made

During the three successive readings of the bill, the Georgian parliament did make some minor amendments on the basis of the above criticisms. It removed  a ban on independent candidates contesting parliament seats in single-mandate constituencies. That restriction was intended to preclude the election of nominally independent candidates aligned with the ruling party (a perennial problem in Azerbaijan).

On December 20, parliament endorsed in the first reading constitutional amendments altering slightly the ratio of proportional to majoritarian mandates from 75:75 to 77:73; guaranteeing any party or election bloc that garners at least 5 percent of the vote six parliament mandates; and amending the existing blanket ban on voting by prisoners to permit persons jailed for less than five years for "minor" offenses to cast ballots.

In the second reading on December 23, they voted to retain the marking of voters' fingers with invisible ink to preclude multiple voting; extended by one month, from July to August 2012, the deadline for verification of voter lists by the new commission; dropped the minimum residency requirement for parliamentary candidates; and endorsed as yet unspecified financial incentives for political parties that succeed in electing women as deputies. 

The proposed increase in the number of mandates from 150 to 190 was discussed intensively in early December and then shelved by consensus for reasons that were not spelled out.  An opinion poll conducted in September had found that only 8 percent of respondents supported the idea, while 60 percent opposed it, suggesting that if the issue had been put to the required referendum, the electorate would have rejected it.

'Undermining Equality Of Suffrage'

The final version of the law fails, however, to address the most detailed and trenchant criticism contained in the Venice Commission/ODIHR joint assessment: the "formation of electoral districts in a manner that undermines the principle of equality of suffrage," meaning the huge disparity between the number of voters in individual constituencies. The assessment cites as examples the municipalities of Kvareli, where the number of registered voters per single-mandate constituency ranged from 665 to 8,204; Lagodekhi (from 470 to 5,680); Baghdati (from 311 to 4,299); and Kobuleti (from 553 to 14,222). 

The joint assessment acknowledges that "some deviation in the number of voters in each electoral district may be unavoidable due to geographic or demographic factors." It notes that the Georgian authorities have "stated the intention to somewhat reduce the discrepancies in the size of districts for future elections." At the same time, it anticipates that "these discrepancies would likely remain excessive throughout the country." Consequently, it recommends that "the code be amended to require single-mandate electoral districts to be of equal or similar voting populations."

Parliament deputy Akaki Minashvili of the EEM was quoted as saying that "we understand the problem" created by disparities in the size of individual constituencies. But he reasoned that "because of the peculiarities of Georgia's administrative [division], it is difficult to ensure constituencies of equal size," and "there is no time" to do so before the parliamentary elections due in October 2012. That argument is disingenuous in light of the two-year delay between the 2008 elections and the launch in late 2010 of talks on amending the election law.

The EEM's reluctance to countenance redistricting may reflect Saakashvili's personal hostility to the idea. In November 2010, and again in April 2011, Saakashvili ruled out depriving individual villages and rural districts of "their" representation in parliament.

The preamble to the Venice Commission/ODIHR joint assessment makes the point that "the extent to which any amendments to the draft code can have a positive impact will ultimately be determined by the political will of state institutions and officials responsible for implementing and upholding" it. Some statements by individual politicians implying that the EEM is justified in seeking to prevent the opposition from coming to power call that political will into question, however. For example, a WikiLeaks cable of March 2008 quotes Giga Bokeria, then an EEM parliament deputy, as telling then-U.S. Ambassador John Tefft that if the opposition found itself empowered to vote down EEM legislative initiatives, political reform would grind to a halt. 

Saakashvili too argues that Georgia's "main" opposition forces "come from the past," implying that they would, given the opportunity, suspend or even roll back the process of democratization.

Whatever calculations lay behind the adoption of the new Electoral Code in its final form, its failure to dismantle systemic provisions favoring the current regime elicited negative comment from both the United States and the European Union. The U.S. Embassy issued a statement expressing "regret that there was no agreement on elements of the new code that would have addressed lingering perceptions of inequality within the electoral system." 

EU delegation head Philip Dimitrov for his part hailed the inclusion in the new code of some Venice Commission recommendations. At the same time, he said some "provisions...may raise disputes and thus give grounds for questioning the fairness of the elections, and this is not what Georgia needs."

Khadzhimurad Kamalov was gunned down late on December 15 outside the editorial office of the independent weekly newspaper "Chernovik" that he founded eight years ago.

Most Daghestani politicians and fellow journalists have linked Kamalov's killing to his journalistic and political engagement. "Chernovik," and Kamalov personally, have a reputation for fearless and trenchant reporting and analysis of the corruption and human rights violations for which Daghestan has become a byword.

Tatiana Lokshina of the Moscow office of Human Rights Watch commented to Reuters that in light of the wave of killings of journalists and human rights activists in the North Caucasus in recent years, Kamalov's death "could almost have been expected."

But the timing of his death suggests he may have been a victim of a broader domestic political struggle in a region where over the past two decades murder has become an integral component of interfactional politics.

Kamalov, 46, was an Avar. He was born in the village of Sogratl, which some observers regard as a hotbed of Avar nationalism. The Avars are the largest of Daghestan's 14 titular ethnic groups, followed by the Dargins, Kumyks, Lezgins, and Laks.

When Kamalov founded "Chernovik" in the summer of 2003, Magomedali Magomedov, a Dargin, had been de facto republic head for over a decade, and the Avars were already hoping that one of their number would be named to succeed him. It is logical to assume that the paper was, and still is, financed by one or more wealthy Avars.

An Avar, Mukhu Aliyev, was duly named to succeed Magomedov as president, and Kamalov served for a time as his press secretary. But Aliyev served only one presidential term before being shunted aside last year in favor of Magomedali Magomedov's son, Magomedsalam.

It is a measure of Kamalov's intelligence and influence that Magomedsalam Magomedov named him a member of his Economic Council. In a televised tribute, Magomedov recalled that in that capacity, Kamalov "regularly proposed interesting ideas," and that "he cooperated actively with us and we frequently talked for hours." He also lauded Kamalov's role in promoting freedom of speech and dialogue between opposing factions.

Not Insurgent Target

Ethnic rivalries are thus unlikely to have played any role in Kamalov's death. It is equally unlikely the insurgency were responsible. The shooting was committed by a single masked gunman who fired 14 shots, only six of which hit the victim, including the final one in the head -- the hallmark of a contract killing.

​​The insurgency generally prefers to use snipers in urban conditions, the most high-profile such killing being that of then-Interior Minister Lieutenant General Adilgirey Magomedtagirov in June 2009. Even when insurgents kill at close range, they are so accomplished that they do not need to resort to the coup de grace to make assurance double sure.

Ruslan Kurbanov of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Oriental Institute suggested Kamalov may have been targeted by one of the new generation of particularly vicious organized-crime groups that surfaced in Daghestan in the mid-2000s. But most experts are convinced he was killed because of his, and the paper's, track record in chronicling corruption, the rigging of elections, and the extrajudicial killings perpetrated by Daghestan's law enforcement agencies in the name of combating the Islamic insurgency.

No Friend Of The Police

Kamalov's last and posthumously published article described apparent machinations during the December 4 local elections in the village of Gunib and identified by name several influential politicians who may have contributed to the defeat of a competent and uncorrupt candidate.

In July 2008, two separate criminal cases were brought against "Chernovik," one in connection with an article that quoted Rappani Khalilov, an insurgency commander killed the previous year, and the second for allegedly inciting hatred of the police. Both ended in acquittals, and Daghestan's Supreme Court threw out an appeal to have the paper shut down. Its then-editor, Nadira Isayeva, was one of last year's recipients of the Committee to Protect Journalists' annual award.

Despite the acquittals, many senior members of the law enforcement agencies continued to regard Kamalov as an apologist for the Islamic insurgency in light of his unceasing criticism of torture, abductions, and other human rights violations, in particular his defense of innocent and law-abiding devout Muslims targeted by police for their imputed cooperation with the insurgency. His name (and Isayeva's) figured on a so-called death list distributed in Makhachkala two years ago of persons to be targeted for their purported engagement on behalf of militants.

Seemingly arbitrary police brutality has persisted in Daghestan for years under successive republic heads and interior ministers, and is increasingly perceived as one of the factors that impel young Muslims to "head for the forest" and join the insurgency ranks. In a bid to stem and reverse that exodus, Magomedov established a government commission one year ago to help repentant fighters "readapt" to civilian life. That commission is regarded with hostility and profound suspicion by some political hard-liners, not all of them representatives of the "siloviki." Its future is in question since its chairman, Rizvan Kurbanov, has been relieved of his post as first deputy prime minister with responsibility for law enforcement and security to take up his mandate as a State Duma deputy.

Protesting Official Impunity

In addition to his journalistic activity, Kamalov was one of the organizers of sporadic protests in Makhachkala against police brutality. It is not clear, however, whether he was involved in the most recent such demonstration on November 25, during which an estimated 5,700 participants, many of them reportedly aligned with religious groups at odds with Daghestan's government-backed Muslim Spiritual Board, condemned, and called for an end to, abductions, torture, human rights abuses, and discrimination on religious grounds.

​​Rizvan Kurbanov, whom Magomedov dispatched to reassure the protesters their grievances would be investigated, was met with jeers and whistles and shouts of "we don't believe you!" "Chernovik" expressed cautious optimism that the scale of the protest, on the eve of elections to the Russian State Duma, would finally galvanize the republic's leaders into taking positive action to end such practices. 

That optimism proved misplaced, however. Senior law enforcement officials immediately sought to exonerate the agencies they head. The Prosecutor-General's Office released a statement on November 29 saying its investigations had not brought to light any evidence that law enforcement agencies were involved in any of the 29 abductions reported in Daghestan between January and October. The statement stressed that the fact that the perpetrators in every case were armed, masked, and dressed in camouflage fatigues does not mean that they were police or security personnel. 

Interior Minister Abdurashid Magomedov (no relation to Magomedsalam) for his part formally denied the veracity of a blog post by lawyer Ziyavuddin Uvaysov, who claimed that some police officials admitted after the protest that police do indeed engage in torture and abductions.

In addition, one of Magomedsalam Magomedov's most powerful political rivals, longtime Makhachkala mayor and fellow Dargin Said Amirov, seized on the November 25 protest to focus attention on the authorities' perceived inability to contain a potential upsurge of religiously motivated protest.

At a meeting with the republic's mufti, Akhmad-hadji Abdullayev, Nationalities Minister Bekmurza Bekmurzayev and the imams of Makhachkala's 42 largest mosques, Amirov said he shares the protesters' concern over human rights abuses and religious discrimination. At the same time, he condemned the November 25 demonstration as potentially destabilizing, recalling the protests in Makhachkala in May 1998 that culminated in the storming and sacking of the government building.

Whether Amirov's comments, and the killing of Kamalov, constitute the first salvoes in a battle to discredit, undermine, and ultimately replace Magomedov (with or without the support of the embattled siloviki) is not yet clear.

Meanwhile, a prominent and powerful Avar politician has hinted he may tap into the wave of popular outrage at Kamalov's death in order to exert pressure on the authorities and ensure the murderer is apprehended and brought to trial. Khasavyurt Mayor Saygidpasha Umakhanov, who spearheaded an unsuccessful campaign in 2004 to force Magomedali Magomedov to resign, told a gathering of journalists in Makhachkala on December 18 that "Khadzhimurad was indeed an independent and honest journalist. It's impossible to find another like him.... His numerous friends and the healthy forces in society will do everything to find the killer. [But for that] we really need to be united."

As this blog previously predicted, the parliament of Georgia's breakaway Republic of South Ossetia has failed to endorse two key provisions of the agreement signed on December 9 between the republic's then de facto president, Eduard Kokoity, and Alla Dzhioyeva, the opposition candidate whose victory in the runoff presidential ballot on November 27 was subsequently annulled by the republic's Supreme Court.

Thousands of Dzhioyeva's supporters camped out for 10 days in sub-zero temperatures on the central square in Tskhinvali, the republic's capital, to protest that Supreme Court ruling.

After 10 days of talks between the two camps mediated by senior Kremlin administration official Sergei Vinokurov, Dzhioyeva and Kokoity signed an agreement under which Dzhioyeva undertook to order her supporters to disperse and formally accepted the Supreme Court's decision to schedule a repeat presidential ballot on March 25, 2012.

Parliamentary Defiance

Kokoity for his part agreed to step down as de facto president, his second term having expired two days earlier, and to dismiss Prosecutor-General Taymuraz Khugayev, Khugayev's deputy Eldar Kokoyev, and Supreme Court Chairman Atsamaz Bichenov.

Kokoity did duly step down. But the parliament failed to endorse the dismissal of Khugayev and Bichenov, although the vote (which was secret, not open) was not unanimous in either case.

Of the 31 deputies present at the session on December 14, 15 voted for Khugayev's dismissal and 15 against, with one spoiled ballot paper; only eight voted for Bichenov's dismissal and 22 against, again with one invalid ballot.

It cannot of course be ruled out that those deputies who voted to sabotage the agreement did so at Kokoity's behest, the objective being to spur the Dzhioyeva camp to violent protests that could serve as a pretext for barring her from next year's repeat election.

Fueling Tensions

Communist Party leader Stanislav Kochiyev, whom Kokoity dismissed as parliament speaker two months ago, deplored the vote as heralding the collapse of the "tenuous agreement" between the two rival camps.

Kochiyev found it difficult to predict whether Dzhioyeva's supporters would resume their protest, or how the deadlock created by the parliament's apparent defiance of the outgoing president could be resolved.

Commenting on the December 14 parliament vote, Dzhioyeva thanked those deputies who voted to endorse the agreement. She said the deputies who declined to do so "are not interested in stability, they want to fuel tensions."

Dzhioyeva also said that Russia, as the guarantor of the agreement, should take responsibility for the failure to implement it.

Asked late on December 13 how she would react if the parliament failed to endorse the two dismissals, Dzhioyeva had said this would constitute a violation of the written agreement and "a challenge to Mr. Vinokurov and all those who stand behind him," meaning the Russian leadership.

In a second blow to Dzhioyeva, acting President and former Prime Minister Vadim Brovtsev has rejected her proposal that her election campaign manager Lieutenant-General Anatoly Barankevich -- a former South Ossetian defense minister and National Security Council chairman who coordinated the defense of Tskhinvali during the August 2008 war -- be named as deputy prime minister.

Arson Attack

Brovtsev's rationale, according to Dzhioyeva, was that there is currently no such vacant position. Dzhioyeva added that they will revisit that issue in a further round of talks next week.

At the same time, after having what he described as "enjoyable" talks" on December 14 with Dzhioyeva and Barankevich, Brovtsev said that the latter put forward "interesting and constructive proposals."

Brovtsev's caution may, however, have been dictated by the desire to avoid a feud between Barankevich and Merab Pukhayev, the Interior Ministry Special Forces commander whom Kokoity named last week as first deputy prime minister, and not intended as a snub to the Dzhioyeva camp.

Certainly it would be logical for Brovtsev, as a representative of the Russian leadership, to conclude a tactical alliance with the opposition in the run-up to the March 25 repeat ballot in order to prevent an election victory by Kokoity's chosen candidate.

Meanwhile, earlier on December 13, unknown perpetrators set fire to Barankevich's car (a Russian-manufactured Lada-Niva, not an expensive foreign import) outside his home, destroying the engine.

The agreement reached late on December 9 that was intended to end the two-week standoff between the outgoing president and the opposition in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia is already fraying. If it falls apart, outgoing de facto President Eduard Kokoity might still succeed in neutralizing the opposition and outmaneuvering Moscow to secure either his return to power or the election of his hand-picked successor.

The standoff resulted from the November 28 decisions by the South Ossetian Supreme Court to annul the outcome of the presidential election runoff the previous day in which preliminary returns gave opposition candidate Alla Dzhioyeva a clear win over Moscow's candidate, Emergency Situations Minister Anatoly Bibilov, and to bar Dzhioyeva from participating in the repeat ballot on the grounds of alleged irregularities committed by her supporters during the November 27 vote. Hundreds of Dzhioyeva's supporters congregated on Tskhinvali's main square to protest that ruling and refused for days to disperse despite sub-zero temperatures.

After 10 days of negotiations mediated by senior Kremlin official Sergei Vinokurov, the two camps reached a compromise late on December 9. Dzhioyeva agreed to acknowledge publicly in a televised address the legality of the Supreme Court's ruling to schedule new elections, thereby implicitly retracting her insistence that she was legally elected president on November 27 in a free and fair ballot. She also undertook to tell her supporters to disperse and return home.

Kokoity, for his part, agreed to step down, his term in office having officially expired on December 7. In line with the republic's constitution, the presidential powers devolve on to Prime Minister Vadim Brovtsev. An ethnic Russian, Brovtsev was foisted on Kokoity by the Kremlin two years ago to try to stem the systematic embezzlement by Kokoity's entourage of funds provided by Moscow for reconstruction of infrastructure damaged or destroyed during the August 2008 war with Georgia.

Kokoity also agreed to fire three senior officials whom the opposition perceived as having either persecuted opposition and human rights activists or connived in the annulment of the election results. They are Prosecutor-General Taymuraz Khugayev (whose sister is married to Kokoity's brother); Khugayev's deputy, Eldar Kokoyev; and Supreme Court Chairman Atsamaz Bichenov.

Both sides duly complied with those obligations. But prior to the December 10 ceremony during which he announced he was stepping down, Kokoity signed a decree appointing Kokoyev and Military Prosecutor's Office staffer Grigory Sobayev to serve as Constitutional Court judges. Kokoity also appointed as first deputy prime minister with responsibility for the police and security forces Merab Pukhayev, hitherto commander of the Interior Ministry special forces (OMON).

Those appointments outraged and stymied Dzhioyeva's supporters, several hundred of whom refused to comply with her request to disperse. Dzhioyeva accused Kokoity of acting in bad faith and said on December 10 she might revoke her signature on the agreement signed the previous day. She also said she would ask Brovtsev to annul the appointments Kokoity made, admitting at the same time she was not sure whether he is legally empowered to do so.

Kokoity retaliated on December 11 with an official statement stressing he had kept his part of the bargain while Dzhioyeva's supporters were continuing a protest for which they did not have official permission. His statement construed Dzhioyeva's threat to revoke her signature from the agreement as evidence that she is not an independent political actor but a pawn in the hands of "outside forces."

That, however, is the last of Dzhioyeva's worries. A careful reading of the agreement that she signed reveals three built-in provisos that Kokoity could use against her. First, it guarantees her the right "under existing legislation" to participate in the March 25 repeat ballot. But the parliament could amend the law to preclude her registration as a candidate, and Kokoity's newly minted Constitutional Court would rubber-stamp that amendment.

Second, the agreement guarantees Dzhioyeva and her supporters "immunity from prosecution for their political views" (which in any event is guaranteed by the constitution), leaving open the hypothetical possibility she/they could be charged with a criminal offense, which would similarly render her ineligible to run in the repeat ballot.

And third, the republic's parliament, the majority of whose deputies remain loyal to Kokoity, is required to endorse the dismissals of Khugayev and Bichenov, which Russian analyst Aleksandr Skokov suggests it may decline to do. In a clear attempt to purge the legislature of rebels, Kokoity on December 11 "suggested" to deputy parliament speakers Yury Dzitstsoity and Mira Tskhovrebova that they should resign. Both had called on Kokoity last week to honor the will of the people, who had elected Dzhioyeva president, and step down. Dzitstsoity told "Kommersant" he would not do so, but predicted that Kokoity might convene an emergency congress of the Unity party of which he is chairman and expel both himself and Tskhovrebova from the party as part of a wave of reprisals.

An even more serious threat to Dzhioyeva is that the parliament might vote to amend the constitution to remove Section 3 of Article 48, which bars anyone from serving more than two consecutive terms as president, and the Constitutional Court will uphold that amendment.

Finally, it is uncertain whether Brovtsev, whom Dzitstsoity characterized as "soft," will prove capable of controlling the "power" agencies still loyal to Kokoity. If he fails, Moscow will have virtually no chance of ensuring the election as Kokoity's successor of a candidate who will implement and defend its interests.

With support for outgoing de facto South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity crumbling, Alla Dzhioyeva, the apparent winner of the election to choose his successor, has proposed a solution to the deadlock precipitated by the Supreme Court's annulment of the results of the November 27 runoff ballot in the breakaway Gerogian region.

But Kokoity appears determined to cling to power, at the risk of a confrontation if Dzhioyeva's supporters make good on their stated intention to stage her public inauguration as president on December 10.

Dzhioyeva told journalists on December 8 after the ninth round of Kremlin-mediated talks between the two camps that she had offered to halt the public protests by her supporters in Tskhinvali if Kokoity stepped down and acknowledged her as interim  president. She would then guarantee the holding of the repeat presidential election.

Kokoity for his part acknowledged on December 8 that his presidential term had expired. But he said he would relinquish power only after the "Orange Revolution," meaning Dzhioyeva's supporters' public protests, ended.

'Gang Of Four' Holds On

Kokoity's position has been weakened this week by calls by deputy parliament speakers Mira Tskhovrebova and Yury Dzitstsoity for him to step down when his term in office expired on December 7. Eight more of the total 30 parliament deputies, including former speaker Stanislav Kochiyev, formally endorsed Tskhovrebova's statement. Only political parties unequivocally loyal to Kokoity were allowed to participate in the May 2009 parliamentary elections.

In an address to the population on December 6, Kokoity admitted that "we can see how intense the protest mood is," and that "the organs of state power have not performed ideally, there have been numerous failings and omissions for which specific officials are to blame."    

Kokoity then proceeded to dismiss two government ministers, the mayors of Tskhinvali and Kvaisa, a local district-council head, and State Communications and Media Committee head Georgy Kabisov. Some observers identified Kabisov as one of the presidential candidates Kokoity was backing in the first round; he placed sixth out of 11 candidates with 7.62 percent of the vote. 

Kokoity did not, however, meet the opposition's demand for the dismissal of any of his fellow members of what the opposition has branded "the Gang of Four": Prosecutor-General Taymuraz Khugayev, his deputy Eldar Kokoyev, and Supreme Court Chairman Atsamaz Bichenov.

Dzhioyeva's announcement on December 8 of the creation of a People's Front to back Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's candidacy in the presidential election next March suggests that she has given up all hope of support from incumbent Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. But she would be naive to place any hopes in Putin, especially in light of his statement several months ago that South Ossetia could at some point become a subject of the Russian Federation. 

Dzhioyeva is not participating in the December 9 Russian-mediated negotiations in Tskhinvali.