The snap presidential elections held on February 15 in Abkhazia, a Russia-backed breakaway region in northwest Georgia, will go to a second round after all five candidates – including the Kremlin favourite, acting leader Badra Gunba, and opposition head, Adgur Ardzinba – failed to pass the 50% threshold.

The Central Election Commission confirmed on February 16 that the runoff is scheduled for March 1, and will see frontrunners Gunba, who received 46% of votes, and his opponent Ardzinba, who secured 37%, go head-to-head.

The Abkhaz parliament called early elections after the former Kremlin-backed president, Aslan Bzhania, was ousted and replaced by Guba as acting president in November 2024, following a coup led by the increasingly popular Ardzinba.

Voting took place on February 15 at 152 polling stations across the de-facto republic as well as in Moscow and Cherkessk in Russia.

The result comes as no surprise – rivals Gunba and Ardzinba represent two polarised political camps that have alternately held power in the Abkhaz government for the past two decades, though both candidates remain broadly in favour of maintaining Abkhazia’s pro-Russia stance, and also overlap in their reliance on retail politics, as reported by OC Media.

The rivals are divided over their approach to economic policy. In November 2024 Ardzinba led mass protests against a controversial investment deal with Russia proposed by the then-president Bzhania and backed by Gunba.

Ardzinba raised concerns that the agreement would threaten Abkhaz security and autonomy, but still pushed for close ties with Russia.

As Georgian outlet Jamnews reports, two other presidential candidates – ex-head of the republic’s Audit Chamber, Robert Arshba and the former Abkhazian trade representative in Russia, Oleg Baritsits – described themselves as a “third force” going into the election for those seeking a fresh candidate, but the two achieved just 11% of votes collectively.

The fifth candidate, chair of the Black Sea Development Bank, Adgur Khurkhumal, was seen as having almost no chance of making it to the second round and secured just 1% of support.

Moscow was very public about its hopes that Gunba – who describes himself as Russia’s closest ally in the region – would win the presidency, and the candidate’s campaign was publicly backed by significant Kremlin support and funding.

However, Gunba is not guaranteed victory: the two polling stations in Moscow and Cherkessk, where the Kremlin-backed candidate enjoys big popularity, will not be open for the runoff vote on March 1.

Moreover, the ballot paper in the vote’s second round will include a third option alongside Gunba and Ardzinba – “none of the above”. To win the presidency either candidate must secure more votes than their opponent and any protest votes put together, increasing the possibility that the Kremlin may not get who they want in power.

On polling day the Georgian foreign ministry strongly condemned what it called the “so-called presidential elections in the Russian-occupied region of Abkhazia”, declaring the vote to be “illegal” and stating that it “blatantly violates the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia within its internationally recognised borders”.

Abkhazia is not recognized as an independent entity by most of international community, with only Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Nauru and Syria (under Bashar al-Assad's recently ousted government) recognising its status as independence.

The ministry also appealed to both the international community “to properly assess and respond appropriately to actions aimed at violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia”, and to Russia “to cease actions that violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia, to fulfil its international obligations, including the ceasefire agreement of August 12, 2008, brokered by the European Union, and to withdraw its troops from the territory of Georgia”.

Spokesman for the European External Action Service, Anouar El Anouni, stated with regard to the Abkhazia presidential vote that “The EU supports the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia, as recognised by international law”, and that the bloc would continue its policy of non-recognition of the republic’s independence.

As reported by Georgian outlet Civil.ge, Ukraine’s foreign ministry also spoke out against the presidential poll in Abkhazia, describing the vote as a “fake” and “a systematic attempt by the Russian Federation to legitimise the pro-Russian separatist regime in the occupied Georgian territory”.

The Ukrainian foreign ministry reiterated its unwavering support for “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia within its internationally recognized borders” and called for Russia to liberate the occupied territories of both Abkhazia and South Ossetia.