In, Out, Shake it all About- the South Ossetian Referendum Conundrum

OPED

The announced South Ossetian referendum about joining the Russian Federation is not to be held until 2017. The dreams of local nomenclature about Crymeazation did not come true this year as the occupied South Ossetian de-facto government has postponed it until next year. The so-called President, Leonid Tibilov, and the so-called Speaker of Parliament, Anatoliy Bibilov, signed a document in which the date of the future referendum is defined as the first week of May, 2017. The same document states that the official reason for the postponement is the so-called presidential elections.

The idea of joining the Russian Federation is nothing new for the Ossetian separatists. As early as 16 years before the Russian-Georgian war of August 2008, in 1992, a referendum was held in Tskhinvali, in which the local population had to answer only one question – should South Ossetia join the Russian Federation? Naturally, the Georgian-speaking population boycotted the referendum, while the 99 percent of local Ossetians responded positively.

The second such referendum was held in the occupied territory in 2006. This time the question was asked in a different form, though the idea was the same, and the eventually would result in either joining the Russian Federation or not: “Do you wish South Ossetia to be an independent state?” The Georgian local population with Georgian nationality boycotted the referendum again, with Official Tbilisi recognizing it as illegitimate, and the separatists once again voted to become “independent.”

The census of 1989 showed that there were 68,200 Ossetians and 28,500 Georgians living on the territory at the time. Following two ethnic cleansings, Georgians have completely left the territory and even the number of Ossetians has been reduced to about 45 thousand.

The separatists hence decided to hold a third referendum on the occupied territory in these “favorable” circumstances, which once again proves that the Ossetian statehood as a notion was merely a fiction from the very beginning, as was the obsessive idea about joining Russia.

As the political calendar of the Kremlin suggested, the fate of the referendum in occupied Tskhinvali was decided in spring, the decision about postponing it taken in the Kremlin at that time and announced only today. On April 14, during the annual “Direct Line” with Vladimir Putin, the President implied as much when he said that the Russian Federation was not considering admitting South Ossetia and that he and Leonid Tibilov had not discussed the issue during their meeting. The next day, during a live broadcast, President Putin ratified the so-called border agreement with South Ossetia, which was a clear signal that Russia did not intend to adopt the occupied territory.

Political analyst Irakli Tskitishvili believes that the idea voiced by Tibilov about holding the referendum was announced without prior agreement with Moscow. In his interview with Radio Freedom Tskitishvili stated that this time it would also remain at the level of mere discussion. “Today, when Russia is thinking about ways to solve its Ukrainian problem, it will not create a new one for small Tskhinvali. I don’t believe this is a Russian initiative..,” Tskitishvili said. “I just believe that periodically Tibilov wants to check the readiness and possibility for so-called South Ossetia to join Russia. Basically, the appointment of Tibilov to his current position was from the very beginning defined, and that he would eventually hold a referendum and join Russia understood, but since then there have only been talks about this issue, nothing more.., so I doubt there’ll be any kind of actual development.”

Expert in political issues Ramaz Sakvarelidze believes that the statement made by Vladimir Putin on April 14 adds some uncertainty to the issue of any holding of a referendum in so-called South Ossetia. However, Sakvarelidze does not exclude that this statement was dishonest and thinks that Russia might be preparing a surprise for Georgia. “If Russia chooses not to recognize the referendum, it might not hold any threat. But if Putin declares that this is the will of the Ossetian people and that he is ready to admit the territory to Russia, the situation will become very tense, indeed.”

Zaza Jgarkava