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South Ossetia's presidential election heads for runoff

Based on the data of 95% of the processed election ballots, none of the candidates for the post of President of the Republic of South Ossetia received more than half of the necessary votes and therefore none of them was elected

© Yelena Afonina/TASS

TSKHINVAL, April 11. /TASS/. The South Ossetian presidential election will be held in two rounds, since none of the candidates were able to pass the threshold, as they failed to get more than 50% of the votes, Emilia Gagieva, chairman of the republic's Central Election Commission (CEC), said at a briefing on Monday.

"Based on the data of 95% of the processed election ballots, none of the candidates for the post of President of the Republic of South Ossetia received more than half of the necessary votes and therefore none of them was elected. The Election Commission, in accordance with Article 50 of the Constitutional Law of the Republic of South Ossetia ‘On the Election of the President of the Republic of South Ossetia’, sets a second round of presidential elections for the two registered candidates who received the highest number of votes", the election commission chief said.

Gagieva added that the next round of elections shall be held no later than 15 days after the announcement of the results of the general elections. The CEC will announce the date of the runoff later. Anatoly Bibilov (33.5%) and Alan Gagloev (36.9%) will be put on the ballot in alphabetical order.

This is the second time that Bibilov and Gagloev are running for the presidency. Both ran in the 2017 election race. Back then, Gagloev got about 11% of the votes, while Bibilov won in the first round with almost 55% of the votes.

South Ossetia’s presidential election was held on Sunday and the vote was declared valid. Incumbent President Anatoly Bibilov, Parliament Deputy Speaker Alexander Pliyev, Nykhaz Political Party leader Alan Gagloyev, lawmaker Garry Muldarov, and former lawmaker Dmitry Tasoyev ran for the republic’s highest state post. According to preliminary data, after processing of 95% of votes, Gagloev got 36.9% of votes and was in the lead. Next in line was Bibilov (33.5%), Pliyev (11.9%), Muldarov (8.9%) and Tasoyev (2.8%). That said, 1.8% of voters voted against all of them.

The candidate who receives more than half of the votes is considered elected. If three or more candidates participate in the election, but none of them receives the required number of votes, a runoff election is held within two weeks. The two candidates who received the highest number of votes in the first round are then set to participate in it. The winner is determined by a simple majority of votes. More than 30% of the electorate on the voter lists must participate in the second round in order for the election to be considered valid. All ballot papers offer a choice of voting against all candidates.

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