Abkhazia’s President Aslan Bzhania announced on Saturday that he would step down once protesters in the capital Sukhumi had vacated government buildings they occupied on Friday amid violent clashes over a controversial investment deal with Russia.
“We have gathered not to preserve my power, but to preserve statehood. Those who are inside the presidential administration must leave. After that, I will announce elections and resign," Bzhania said.
Protesters stormed the parliament building of the breakaway region of Georgia in an attempt to prevent a controversial investment deal with neighbouring Russia from being adopted on Friday. Clashes between protesters and the security forces culminated with protesters using a truck to break through the gates of the government compound before storming into parliament.
Abkhazia’s presidential administration had announced later on Friday that it intended to revoke the deal in order to stabilise the situation, but the move did little to placate protesters, who pledged to occupy government buildings until Bzhania resigned.
The investment deal, which was signed by both parties in October, grants Russian investors several benefits including an eight-year exemption from property and profit taxes as well as customs duties on imported construction materials and equipment.
While the Abkhazian authorities view the deal between Sukhumi and Moscow as a potential boost for the region’s economy, opponents believe the deal represents the surrender of Abkhazia’s own interests to those of “foreign oligarchs”.
“They are protesting for the protection of local businesses and because they are afraid of the prospect that someone much bigger, with bigger funds, comes around and might just make the local population not noticeable anymore,” Olesya Vartanyan, an expert on security and conflicts in the South Caucasus, told Novaya Europe.
Abkhazia’s opposition was keen to stress that Friday’s protests had not been anti-Russian in nature however, stressing that it had “always emphasised the importance of brotherly and strategic ties” between Russia and Abkhazia. Instead, it added, the protests had been directed at Bzhania, whom they accused of using relations with Moscow “for his own selfish interests during his entire rule, manipulating them to strengthen his regime.”
Bzhania, a former KGB officer who came to power in 2020 after running as an independent, has made strengthening ties with Russia his key foreign policy priority, calling the country Abkhazia’s “only strategic partner”. If Bzhania resigns, he will become the region’s third leader to be forced from office since 2008.
Georgia lost control of Abkhazia following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, a loss that was later cemented by a short war with Russia in 2008 that enabled Moscow to strengthen its influence in the region by formally recognising its independence and providing significant military and financial support.
While Abkhazia is still recognised as part of Georgia under international law, its economy remains almost entirely dependent on Moscow, which even paid the salaries of the region’s public sector employees until September, when Abkhazian Foreign Minister Sergey Shamba confirmed that Russia had suspended its funding.
Tensions over the investment deal first escalated on Monday, when five opposition figures were detained by the security services for attending a rally against its ratification. Their arrest prompted hundreds of protesters to take to the streets and by Tuesday morning demonstrators had barricaded three key bridges and the main road to Sukhumi.