Two months after announcing plans to hold a referendum on the incorporation of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia into the Russian Federation, the de facto president of the largely unrecognized Republic of South Ossetia, has set a tentative timeframe for doing so. He told journalists on December 28 that the referendum should take place "long before" the presidential ballot due in April 2017.
Tibilov simultaneously proposed renaming the region the Republic of South Ossetia -- Alania, by analogy with the contiguous Republic of North Ossetia -- Alania, which is a Russian Federation subject. The Ossetians, an Indo-European people, consider themselves the direct descendants of the Alans. Approximately 65 percent of North Ossetia's population of 713,000 are Ossetians.
Changing the region's name, Tibilov argued, would underscore the predicament of an ethnic group divided between two polities, and thus pave the way for the eventual unification of the two Ossetian states within the Russian Federation, which Russian media quoted him as referring to as "the eternal dream of our entire people."
Tibilov said he plans to task legal specialists with drafting the requisite changes to the republic's constitution, which currently describes South Ossetia as "a sovereign,democratic, law-based state formed as a result of the self-determination of the people of South Ossetia."
Tibilov specifically referred to Article 10 of the constitution, which envisages South Ossetia entering into an alliance with other states and relinquishing part of its sovereignty.http://cominf.org/node/1166507162
Tibilov implied that his initiative to change the region's formal name was prompted at least in part by indignation at the recent formal opening in Magas, the capital of Ingushetia (North Ossetia's eastern neighbor) of a construction named "the Alan Gates." He construed the use of that name as a bid by the Ingush to appropriate part of the Ossetians' ethnic heritage.
Relations between Ingushetia and North Ossetia remain strained as a result of their brief but bloody conflict in 1992 over Ingushetia's territorial claims on North Ossetia's Prigorodny Raion, which had been part of the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic until that republic was abolished following the deportation of both Chechens and Ingush to Central Asia in 1944.
Moscow's Reticence
At first glance, Tibilov's intention to schedule a referendum on eventual unification with North Ossetia is difficult to reconcile with the emphasis he consistently places on strengthening South Ossetian statehood. To that end, he recently decreed the long-anticipated establishment of a Constitutional Court.
On the other hand, if Tibilov intends to run for a second presidential term in April 2017, holding the referendum on unification will take the wind out of the sails of his most serious potential challenger, parliament speaker Anatoly Bibilov.
Bibilov called two years ago for a referendum on unification with North Ossetia, but Moscow, which had recognized South Ossetia as an independent state in the aftermath of the August 2008 war with Georgia, declined to support the idea. Indeed, when Tibilov raised the issue two months ago during a visit to Tskhinvali by Russian presidential administration official Vladislav Surkov, President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov swiftly denied that a referendum on unification figured on the agenda of their talks.
There has been no comment on Tibilov's most recent statements either from Moscow or from North Ossetia, whose new head, Tamerlan Aguzarov, visited Tskhinvali to meet with Tibilov even before he was formally confirmed in office.
Just days before Tibilov proposed adding "Alania" to his republic's name, however, the Regnum news agency cited comments by a politician and a political commentator from North Ossetia, both of whom were less than enthusiastic at the prospect of South Ossetia becoming part of Russia.
Georgy Zozrov, who heads the North Ossetian chapter of Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, opined that the proposed referendum should not take place for another 15-20 years.
Political commentator Vladimir Kaloyev for his part argued that, while South Ossetia has the right to hold such a referendum, its results would not be binding for Russia.