Security personnel outside the Central Election Commission headquarters in South Ossetia fired warning shots into the air on November 30 to disperse a crowd of protesters.
Hundreds of supporters of disqualified presidential candidate Alla Dzhioyeva marched through the streets of the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, to protest a court decision that overturned Dzhioyeva’s apparent victory in the November 27 presidential election.
On November 29, South Ossetia’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of complaints from supporters of rival candidate Anatoly Bibilov, who seemed to have lost the poll on November 27, and ordered the results of the elections annulled.
Parliament later barred Dzhioyeva from running in presidential elections now scheduled to be held again in March 2012.
Dzhioyeva told the media on the morning of November 30 that she considers herself to be the lawfully elected president of South Ossetia and plans to form a government council.
Dzhioyeva’s apparent victory was especially surprising since Moscow was backing Bibilov.
South Ossetia broke away from Georgia in a war in the 1990s.
Russia recognized South Ossetia’s independence after a brief war with Georgia in 2008, but since then only a handful of other countries have followed the Kremlin’s lead.
compiled from agency reports