SUKHUM (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th August, 2019) No violations have yet been officially reported during the Sunday presidential election in Abkhazia, Tamaz Gogia, the chairman of the republic's central election commission, told reporters.
The country is having its fourth presidential election since it proclaimed its independence from Georgia in 2008. There are nine candidates running for the office, including current Abkhaz President Raul Khadzhimba, Astamur Tarba, the former head of the republic's Security Service, and defense minister's adviser Oleg Arshba.
"There are no official reports about violations yet. Any report is reviewed, any complaint is reviewed," Gogia said.
According to the official, there were 67 international observers and 79 journalists monitoring the election.
Elena Labakhua, the central election commission's press secretary, said that delegations from Russia, South Ossetia, Germany, China, unrecognized republics of Transnistria and Nagorno-Karabakh, and self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics were present at the election. Also there are delegations from the parliament of the Union State of Russia and Belarus, the Interparliamentary Assembly of Member Nations of the Commonwealth of Independent States, and representatives from Venezuela and Turkey.
While being a part of Georgia, Abkhazia suffered from ethnic tensions between Abkhaz and Georgian populations, resulting in the 1992-1993 war. The conflict ended with Abkhazia being a de facto independent country. In August 2008, Abkhazia and Russia fend off an attack by the Georgian military leading to the official founding of self-governing Abkhaz nation. It still remains unrecognized by the majority of world's nations, with the exception of Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Nauru and Syria.
