Elections to the People's Council were held in Abkhazia on 13 February 1919, alongside parliamentary elections in Georgia.[1]
Results
editThe Social Democrats won 27 of the 40 seats; 11 members of the party were Abkhazians and 11 Georgians, with the remaining five having other ethnicities.[1] Seats were also held by social federalists, an Abkhaz independent socialist group, Socialist Revolutionaries, people's democrats and colonists.[2]
Of the 40 members, 18 were Abkhazian, 16 Georgian and six from other ethnic groups.[1]
Aftermath
editFollowing its election, the Council split along ethnic lines, with Abkhaz members of the Social Democratic Party joining the independent socialists to form an Abkhaz opposition.[2] Despite the split, the Council voted in favour of Abkhazia being an autonomous region of Georgia.[3]
References
edit- ^ a b c Zurab Paparskiri (2008) "Abkhazia and the Abkhazians in the common Georgian ethno-cultural political and state exspanse, Part II", The Caucasus & Globalisation, Vol 2, Issue 4, pp95–107
- ^ a b Arsène Saparov (2014) From Conflict to Autonomy in the Caucasus: The Soviet Union and the Making of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno Karabakh, Routledge, p46
- ^ Mariam Goshadze (2008) Inventing the self: Instrumentalisation of history in Abkhazian-Georgian conflict, p51