The controversial Abkhazian Ethnicity Restoration Law, targeting ethnic Georgians in Gali District, faces an uncertain fate after “Speaker of Parliament” Valery Kvarchia announced it would remain in force.
Kvarchia today claimed that other lawmakers broke the legislative order in their hasty repeal of the law at an extraordinary session on March 22, just a day after it was passed.
Kvarchia, who initiated the controversial changes, listed several violations and said lawmakers failed to provide a written and signed request needed for the session to be held.
In addition, Kvarchia claimed that since he was not present during the session, rules dictating the speaker’s conduct of the session and internal order were violated.
He added that his deputy, Mikhail Sangulia, broke the law by chairing the session. Kvarchia argued that Sangulia was only allowed to chair the meeting on his behalf.
“I did not confide in anyone and did not know that a meeting would take place,” the Sokhumi-based news agency Apsnypress quoted Kvarchia as saying.
The legislation would allow some 30,000 ethnic Georgians living in the occupied Gali district to “restore Abkhaz ethnicity” and subsequently obtain Abkhaz passports.
The previous Kremlin-backed government of Raul Khajimba stripped the Abkhazian “citizenship” and political rights of Gali Georgians, who form the overwhelming majority in the district, in 2014 and 2017.
uncertain fate
While Kvarchia claimed the controversial law was in effect, the law still faces an uncertain fate as Abkhazian leader Aslan Bzhania must first sign the law or return it to the legislature.
But Bzhania has not yet commented on the controversial developments and is currently on a trip to Moscow.
The administration of Bzhania, including “Prime Minister” Alexander Ankvab and the current district head of Gali, Konstantin Pilia, have on several occasions advocated issuing passports to residents of Gali.
But Bzhania’s camp faced fierce opposition from Abkhaz hardliners, including the influential group of war veterans Aruaa.
They previously reminded current “Prime Minister” Alexander Ankvab that issuing Abkhazian passports to Georgians led to his ousting from the presidency back in 2014.
Chronology of the controversy
Spokesman Valery Kvarchia presented the legislative changes in March 2021. After clearing the first hurdle later that month, the bill stalled for nearly a year.
In an unexpected turn of events, the outbound convening of the legislature pushed the amendments through second and third readings on March 21, 2022, prompting immediate outrage from hardliners, with the Aruaa group promptly planning a March 23 rally.
The veterans then called off the rally when Aruaa member Temur Nadaraia, former Gali district chief, said lawmakers apologized and withdrew the law at the March 22 extraordinary session.
Hardliners fear that issuing Abkhazian passports to some 30,000 ethnic Georgians in the region of less than a quarter of a million people would undermine the Abkhazian ethnocracy in the occupied region.
Ethnic Georgian residents of Gali returned to Abkhazia in the late 1990s after several years of being uprooted after the 1992-1993 war.
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