Parliamentary elections were held in

South Ossetia South Ossetia, ka, სამხრეთი ოსეთი, ( , ), officially the Republic of South Ossetia – the State of Alania, is a partially recognised landlocked state in the South Caucasus. It has an officially stated populat ...

on 12 May 1999. They were the third elections in the then unrecognized state since its de facto independence following the First South Ossetia War and the first elections after the territory became a

semi-presidential republic A semi-presidential republic, is a republic in which a president exists alongside a prime minister and a cabinet, with the latter two being responsible to the legislature of the state. It differs from a parliamentary republic in that it has ...

with a new constitution ratified on 27 November 1996. Prior to this, South Ossetia had no executive branch of government, and the Speaker of Parliament was the head of state.

Conduct

Following the 1992 war, South Ossetia had a working relationship with the

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

government, namely though the Joint Control Commission for Georgian–Ossetian Conflict Resolution, and a $270,000 allocation for the region by the 1999 budget. Additionally, the South Ossetian constitution of 1996 reserved four of the 33 seats in

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

for ethnic Georgians, which was welcomed by the Georgian government, who still decried the elections as illegal and invalid. Prior to the election of Eduard Kokoyty to the office of

President of South Ossetia The president of the Republic of South Ossetia ( os, Хуссар Ирыстоны президент, russian: Президент Южной Осетии) is the ''de facto'' head of state of the partially recognized Republic of South Ossetia ...

in 2001, most politicians in the Republic where either independents or

Communists Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

. The same year Georgia had parliamentary elections and due to the ambiguous zones of control on the region, portions of South Ossetia voted either in the Georgian election, the South Ossetian election, both or neither. For example, a new election district, Liakhvi, was created for the Georgian election and consisted of portions of the former Tskhinvali district under Georgian control while its residents could still vote in the South Ossetian election. The Tskhinvali and Java districts would remain vacant in the Georgian election.

Results

The results were a sweeping victory for the

Communist Party of South Ossetia The Communist Party of South Ossetia ( os, Хуссар Ирыстоны Коммунистон парти, Hussar Irystony Kommuniston parti; ka, სამხრეთ ოსეთის კომუნისტური პარტია, tr; ...

, which won 27 of the 33 seats with over 80% of the vote. Their leader, Stanislav Kochiev would be elected the Speaker of Parliament with 22 votes. The result was a major blow to the aspirations of independent President

Lyudvig Chibirov Lyudvig Alekseyevich Chibirov ( os, Цыбырты Алексейы фырт Людвиг ''Tseberte Alêksêye fert Lyudvig'', ka, ლუდვიგ ჩიბიროვი, russian: Лю́двиг Алексе́евич Чи́биров; bor ...

, who was accused by his Communist opposition of working with the Georgian government to reach an agreement under which South Ossetia would rejoin Georgia, on the condition of local autonomy and an independent legislature from

Tbilisi Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of approximately 1.5 million p ...

, similar to the

South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast The South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast (russian: Юго-Осетинская автономная область, ka, სამხრეთ ოსეთის ავტონომიური ოლქი, os, Хуссар Ирыстоны ав� ...

. This accusation, especially with most voters being veterans of the 1992 war, made Chibirov very unpopular. The four seats reserved for ethnic Georgians remained vacant, as the Georgian population boycotted the elections. One of the two independents in parliament, Aleksandr Shavlokhov, would remain Prime Minister.

References

{{South Ossetian elections Elections in South Ossetia

Parliamentary A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of the ...

Election and referendum articles with incomplete results