Authorities and NGOs of South Ossetia state the need to develop democracy

The South-Ossetian civil society is notable by its critical backwardness in development, dissociation and extreme form of opposition to the authorities. This is the opinion of the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), working today in South Ossetia. In the opinion of Sarmat Parastaev, chairman of the citizens' forum of South Ossetia, in spite of it, "people still try to start dialogue with the authorities." President Eduard Kokoity also expresses his intention to hold open dialogue and discuss the problems of democracy development.

Parastaev: civil society of South Ossetia is under enormous press of retaliatory measures

Sarmat Parastaev believes that the civil society of South Ossetia was driven by punitive actions, lawlessness of the authorities and social injustice under a terrible press.

Alan Gassiev, an expert from South Ossetia, noted that "in their aspiration to put the civil sector under complete control, the authorities form their 'pocket' public organizations, trying to replace the few independent organizations who defend their position," the "Echo of the Caucasus" Radio reports.

Lira Tskhovrebova, head of the NGO named "Resource-Centre", asserts that out of more than 100 public organizations registered in South Ossetia, none is financed by the state, while three pro-governmental political parties receive 12 million budget roubles. "There are also NGOs founded and headed by high-ranking bureaucrats," she said.

Kokoity invites NGOs to open dialogue and accuses opposition of nonconstructivity

On March 23 Eduard Kokoity held a meeting with heads of political parties, public and nongovernmental organizations of the republic, where he invited his audience to open dialogue with discussion of available problems related with development of democracy, multi-party system and civil society in the Republic of South Ossetia, as reported by the "Res" Agency.

By its content and possible consequences for further political development, that meeting stood notably out of other similar actions held lately, as the newspaper "South Ossetia" writes, noting that the President's opening words with the offer of cooperation were unexpected, to a certain degree, for the majority of the audience.

The State Adviser Kosta Dzugaev spoke about the state support of the third sector and the necessity to allocate in the budget at least minimal financial support for NGOs and public organizations.

A number of participants of the meeting offered to include for strengthening the civil society and ensuring pluralism into the Public Chamber of South Ossetia representatives of the NGO-sector and the political parties, which remained outside the parliament, in particular, the Party "Fydybasta". Eduard Kokoity agreed with this offer and instructed to decide, together with the parliament, on allocation of the respective quota.

The newspaper also noted that starting autumn 2008 an open political confrontation started, which touched directly Ossetia and Ossetian Diasporas; and at this time significant time and resources, involved in this confrontation of the parties, are spent on mutual attacks and discrediting, therefore the interests of South Ossetia and its image both in Russia and in other countries are suffering most.

The situation is aggravated by the fact that South Ossetia still lacks any sustainable practice of public debates on the whole spectrum of topical issues; the legal awareness of the population leaves much to be desired; and citizens of the republic, instead of standing for their rights, prefer writing endless complaints to every possible instances, the newspaper writes.