According to the aide, these measures are aimed against "the political intriguers who are greedy for power and who are leading the republic to civil war."
Sergei Bagapsh, the opposition candidate, who the Central Election Commission declared the winner of the presidential elections in the self-proclaimed republic, has said: "I think we will make public the full text of Gennady Bukayev's statement on Abkhazian television. We will let the people know who is really destabilizing the situation in Abkhazia."
Recently, Anatoly Otyrba, a spiritual leader of the Abkhazian opposition and famous publicist, told Georgian journalists, "certain forces in Moscow are preparing to surrender Abkhazia to Georgia through Khadzhimba, and this is why they so insistently want to make him president, as they believe he will obey any order from Moscow."
According to Vremya Novostei, Mr. Bukayev's statement was the last warning for the Abkhazians: if Mr. Bagapsh is inaugurated on December 6, Russia will seal the border and stop paying Russian pensions to the elderly living in the self-proclaimed republic.
All these transparent hints are meant first of all for Mr. Bagapsh. The railway has been blocked, but in vain. Then, an offensive was launched on the tangerine front, the main export for the Abkhazian people. After the war for independence ended in 1992-1993, the self-proclaimed republic of Abkhazia has survived in an economic blockade. In these circumstances, revenues from fruit exports to Russia and Russian tourists coming to the area have been the main financial sources of the republic. According to reports from Abkhazia, Mr. Bukayev's statement and the tangerine blockade have prompted some Abkhazians to demonstrably tear up their Russian passports in protest.
