Old new government

Image removed.Alla Dzhioyeva's supporters meeting. Tskhinvali, 01 December, 2011. Photo: Eduard Kornienko/REUTERS

Acting President of South Ossetia - Vadim Brovtsev has already started doing business. Various personnel changes were made last week. However, no room has so far been found in the Brovtsev government for the opposition, whose supporters intend to mobilize in the centre of Tskhinvali again in the near future.

If we take a look at the Brovtsev government, we will see that ex-president Eduard Kokoyty has continued to control the domestic situation in Tskhinvali up to now. The new cadres in the Tskhinvali government were selected among Kokoyty's team members. This has enraged the opposition's supporters, who are preparing for a new wave of protests.

The political crisis that erupted in Tskhinvali after the presidential elections held at the end of November is continuing. Opposition candidate Alla Dzhioyeva won the second round of the election, outpolling the Kremlin's favourite by a margin of 16 percent. However, the South Ossetian Supreme Court annulled the results of the elections and scheduled the new elections for March. Thousands of the opposition's supporters protested against this decision holding rallies in the streets for several weeks.

At the end of December, a representative of Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev arrived in Tskhinvali to defuse the situation. According to the agreement reached, Eduard Kokoyty was to resign and Vadim Brovtsev was to act as a president, taking Alla Dzhioyeva and her team members to the government. However, no member of Dzhioyeva's team has so far been appointed to any post in the new government.

For example, an agreement was signed that Anatoliy Barankevich, the “grey eminence” and one of the most influential politicians in South Ossetia, was to occupy the post of vice prime minister. Barankevich is now being told that there is no such post as vice prime minister in the South Ossetian government.

The South Ossetian authorities are doing all they can to convince the population that the recent developments in South Ossetia are an "orange revolution", which is, as a rule, always governed by external forces. The local TV station broadcasts a film about orange revolutions which the West has organized in the post-Soviet area. Eduard Kokoyty directly accused opposition leaders of being linked to the Western special services.

The main news of the local TV station was the report saying that one of the opposition leaders, Dzhambolat Tedeyev, gave an interview to the Georgian TV station. This was assessed as collaboration with the Georgian special services.

Some representatives of the opposition believe that Brovtsev is playing his own game, not Kokoyty's, in order to find time and create and strengthen his own team for the elections in March.

"Some people, who are not in very good relations with Kokoyty, are together with Brovtsev now. Brovtsev will try to create at least an illusion of some changes before March," one of the opposition leaders, Roland Kelekhsayev, said.

However, Brovtsev is playing quite a dangerous game. Although people have not been standing in the streets for just a few days now, this does not mean that the wave of protests in the republic has faded away. Experts and journalists in Tskhinvali covering the protests are sure that even more people are ready to gather in the streets and this might be more dangerous for the interim government, as the Kremlin is now facing problems which are a lot more serious than the political crisis in South Ossetia. The opposition in Tskhinvali has a chance to take advantage of this situation.

If Brovtsev continues to pursue this tough policy, opposition-minded voters who protested against the old government, will start protesting against the Brovtsev government.

Alla Dzhioyeva intends to continue her struggle. She said that the opposition needs the temporary break just to regain force: "The same rules as in wartime are valid for battles in the political arena: you sometimes take a step back in order to take two steps forward later. You take a time-out to analyze the situation and set a new strategy. We have not disappeared. There is no force able to stop us".

However, people in Tskhinvali fear that the authorities will do all they can to keep Dzhioyeva away from the elections.

Alla Dzhioyeva has said it herself: "I am sure that they will try to do that. In South Ossetian government they need a person to manipulate easily, but this is not a fundamental problem. The problem does not lie in personalities. Even without me, we will definitely find a candidate who will have a devastating effect on them".

The terminology used in the article belongs to the author and not “Liberali”.

The article is prepared with support of Heinrich Boell Foundation. The publication statements and ideas do not necessarily express the Heinrich Boell Foundation opinion.