Abkhazia’s Supreme Court president quits under pressure

The president of the Supreme Court in Georgia’s breakaway republic of Abkhazia resigned Monday after coming under pressure to annul the results of the recent "presidential" election won by the opposition candidate, a justice ministry source said. The source said that Alla Avidzba’s resignation had been accepted. Opposition candidate Sergei Bagapsh was declared the winner of the October 3 poll with 50.8 percent of the vote, but his main rival, former premier Raul Khajimba, a government candidate supported by Moscow, has challenged the result. The court is due to rule before Friday on the validity of the election’s outcome amid daily street protests in the tiny region on the Black Sea that once served as a prime vacation spot for the Soviet elite. An opposition newspaper said that it had been told that it could not be printed because of technical problems, though a pro-government paper was not affected. "The paintworks told me it cannot publish all Abkhazia’s newspapers," Inal Kashiq, editor of Chegenskaya Pravda said.