AKIPRESS.COM - The president of Abkhazia resigned on Sunday after less than a week of unrest during which demonstrators stormed the presidential administration building, according to media reports.
On Saturday, Parliament voted to oust the president, Aleksandr Z. Ankvab, designated its speaker, Valery Bganba, as the acting president and scheduled an early presidential election for Aug. 24. Mr. Ankvab initially rejected Parliament’s actions and insisted that he would remain in office.
On Sunday evening, Mr. Ankvab resigned from office after issuing a rambling statement in which he accused his opponents of violating the Abkhaz Constitution as well as moral standards.
“People are outraged over the flagrant violation of the Constitution, and moral norms, and about the opposition’s aggressive attitude, with dances in front of the presidential administration, as if a victory party against their own people,” Mr. Ankvab wrote in his statement.
Large protests against Mr. Ankvab first began in Sukhumi, on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, last Tuesday night, and hundreds of demonstrators occupied the presidential administration building.