Alexander Yeo

The election campaign has begun in South Ossetia, and it started with the arrest of Tamara Mearakishvili, a South Ossetian citizen of Georgian ethnicity, on espionage charges. Unfortunately, this is already a well-established tradition in South Ossetia’s political system. Almost every president, seeking re-election, has at some point tried to link opponents to the theme of “Georgian spies.” The arrest was needed only to later claim at a press conference that Atsamaz Bibilov and David Sanakoev—two key candidates seen as a threat to the incumbent president, Alan Gagloev—had allegedly passed official documents to a “spy” and thus cooperated with Georgia. The core problem is that this story primarily damages the image of South Ossetia as a state. A republic that itself suffered from Georgian chauvinism and from policies that branded people as enemies based on ethnicity is now, even if selectively rather than en masse, resorting to similar methods. And it is obvious that as the elections approach, tensions will only continue to rise.