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Georgian speaker calls illegal Abkhaz election

70% of residents of the Abkhaz region are refugees who have no right to declare their position, said georgian Speaker David Bakradze

TBILISI, August 26 (Itar-Tass) — Georgian Speaker David Bakradze has called illegal the election in the Abkhaz region.

“This ‘ballot’ is not a real and legal election at the time when over 70% of residents of the Abkhaz region are refugees who are banished from their homes and have no right to declare their position,” he said. “The ‘election’ held in the Abkhaz region is nothing but re-division of power between clans.”

Bakradze said he was certain that “relevant international structures and states would say, as they had done before, that the current process in the Abkhaz region could not be called an election.”

Before the armed conflict of 1992-1993, the Abkhaz autonomous republic had a population of about 550,000. According to the Georgian authorities, about 400,000 people fled the region because of the conflict. More than 230,000 of them now live in Georgia, while others live in Russia (over 50,000), Ukraine (over 10,000), Greece, Israel, Germany, the United States and some other countries.

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