Eduard Kokoity

Eduard Dzhabeyevich Kokoity Кокойты Джабейы фырт Эдуард
President of South Ossetia
Incumbent
Assumed office  18 December 2001
Prime Minister	Gerasim Kugayev Igor Sanakoyev Zurab Kokoyev (Acting) Yury Morozov Boris Chochiev (Acting) Aslanbek Bulatsev Vadim Brovtsev
Preceded by	Lyudvig Chibirov
Born	31 October 1964 (1964-10-31) (age 46) Tskhinvali, Soviet Union
Political party	Unity Party
Spouse(s)	Madina Tolparova

Eduard Dzhabeyevich Kokoity (Ossetic: Кокойты Джабейы фырт Эдуард, Russian: Эдуа́рд Джабе́евич Коко́йты, Georgian: ედუარდ კოკოითი; surname also rendered as Kokoyty or Kokoiti or in a Russified version as Kokoyev) (born October 31, 1964, Tskhinvali, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union) is the President of South Ossetia.

Early life

Eduard Kokoity was born on October 31, 1964 in Tskhinvali, in the Georgian SSR, a part of the Soviet Union at the time. Kokoity was a member, and champion, of the Soviet Union's national wrestling team. Prior to 1989, he was the First Secretary of the Tskhinvali branch of the Komsomol, the Young Communist League. He moved to Moscow in 1992, where he became a businessman, after learning about capitalism. In 2001, he moved back to South Ossetia.

2001 Presidential Election

Kokoity was elected president, at the age of 38, with a majority in the presidential elections of November-December 2001. In the first round of the elections on November 18, 2001, he collected 45% of the vote, with Stanislav Kochiev collecting 24%, and incumbent Lyudvig Chibirov collecting 21%. In the Second and final round, he won 53% of the vote to Stanislav Kochiev's 40% on December 6. Kokoity assumed office on December 18, 2001.

Kokoity's victory was unexpected and owed much to the support of the Tedeyev clan, one of South Ossetia's most powerful families. He had gained key support from Albert "Dik" Tedeyev and his brother Jambulat, also a champion wrestler, who organized and financed Kokoity's election campaign.^[1] The clan had previously supported Lyudvig Chibirov, but broke off support for him after he attempted to move against them. After Kokoity was elected president, members of the Tedeyev clan took over responsibility for the republic's customs service and for freight traffic along the Transcaucasian highway. Revenues from the highway provide much of the South Ossetian government's revenue.

In July 2003, Kokoity moved against the Tedeyevs. Sacking Albert Tedeyev, the Secretary of the Security Council, and ordering their private militias to be disarmed. According to Kokoity, the Security Council Secretary, along with the Defense and Security Chiefs had links with criminals. The affair prompted an outbreak of gunfire in Tskhinvali, but no casualties were reported.

President

Kokoity has taken a strong position against reunification with Georgia, although he has expressed a willingness to negotiate a peace settlement on the basis of South Ossetia being treated as an independent state (a precondition rejected by the Tbilisi government). Following a tense stand-off with the central Georgian government in July 2004, he claimed "Georgia wants war. But we are ready for self-defense." Prior to the 2006 presidential elections, he stated that the Georgian-Ossetian conflict was not an inter-ethnic, but clearly a political one caused by Georgia’s desire to impose on Ossetians the norms of Western democracy which could not be superior to the Caucasian traditional laws.^[2] He has also criticized the OSCE mission in the region on several occasions, accusing the organization of bias and likening its activities to "that of Georgia's secret services."^[3]

He was reelected on November 12, 2006 following the 2006 presidential election. On the same day, the opposition organized an alternative election in the territories controlled by Georgia or only loosely controlled by the South Ossetian government. Dmitry Sanakoyev, a former prime minister of South Ossetia, who was sacked by Kokoity in 2001, was elected as a rival president.

Controversy

On September 11, 2008 Kokoity stated that independent South Ossetia would eventually become part of the Russian Federation, a claim that was quickly denied by Russian officials and shortly thereafter retracted by Kokoity.^[4] Kokoity is a Eurasianist and argues that South Ossetia never left the Russian Empire. ^[5]

Since December 2008, Kokoity’s former allies have subjected him to heavy criticism in a series of interviews with the Russian media. Kokoity’s erstwhile insider and the Russia-based businessman Albert Dzhussoyev accused the Kokoity administration of hijacking Russian funds meant for South Ossetia and claimed the region was on the brink of a "social catastrophe." Similar charges have been brought by South Ossetia’s former defense minister Anatoly Barankevich and prime minister Oleg Morozov. Barankevich further claimed that Kokoity had fled Tskhinvali during the 2008 South Ossetia War and accused him of personally torturing a captured Georgian soldier. South Ossetia’s former interior minister and chair of the supreme court, Alan Parastayev, told the Georgian Imedi TV that Kokoity had organized a series of terrorist attacks and ordered murders for which he blamed Georgia.^[6] Representatives of the Kokoity administration dismissed the allegations, claiming these allegations were part of a plot against Kokoity.^[7][8]

On March 3, 2009, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that Kokoity's administration and the Kremlin were at odds over the control of aid funds allocated from Russia's federal budget to South Ossetia and Tskhinvali was at the verge of "social explosion."^[9][10] In May 2009, Albert Dzhussoyev and Dzhabulat Tadeyev (brother of the murdered Ibragim Tadeyev) announced they would seek to organize early presidential elections in order to remove Kokoity whom they accused of authoritarianism, corruption and being “unreliable” for Russia. The first attempt at organizing an Ossetian opposition rally in Moscow was dispersed by the Russian OMON.^[11][12]

In spring 2010, Kokoity again received lots of criticism, mostly regarding the use of Russian aid.^[13] An opinion poll held by the International Center of Political Analysis (MTsPA) showed an approval rating for Kokoity of 12.4%, with 66.3% of respondents having a negative opinion.^[14] Kosta Dzugaev, an advisor to Kokoity, immediately blasted the poll as "lies", claiming the MTsPA had never actually done any research in South Ossetia.^[15] The MTsPA has been linked to Prime Minister Vadim Brovtsev, who is himself under attack for mismanaging Russian funds.^[16]

References

Heads of State of South Ossetia Znaur Gassiev  · Torez Kulumbegov  · Lyudvig Chibirov  · Eduard Kokoity