Government of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia

Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia
აფხაზეთის ავტონომიური რესპუბლიკა (Georgian)
de jure location of Abkhazia in Georgia
StatusGovernment-in-exile
Capital
  • Sokhumi (1992–1993, de jure since 1993)
    In exile:
  • Tbilisi (1993–2006, 2008 – present)
  • Chkhalta (2006–2008)
Official languages
GovernmentAutonomous government
 Chairman of the
Cabinet of Ministers
Vacant
 Chairman of the
Supreme Council
Jemal Gamakharia
LegislatureSupreme Council
Autonomous republic within Georgia
 Georgian independence
from the Soviet Union:

Declared
Recognised


April 9, 1991
December 25, 1991

The Government of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia is an administration established in exile by Georgia as the de jure government of its separatist region of Abkhazia. Abkhazia has been de facto independent from Georgia – though with limited international recognition – since the early 1990s. Ruslan Abashidze, elected in May 2019, is the current head of the government-in-exile. The government-in-exile is partly responsible for the affairs of some 250,000 internally displaced persons who were forced to leave Abkhazia following the War in Abkhazia and the resulting ethnic cleansing of Georgians from the area.

Between September 2006 and July 2008, the Georgian recognized government was headquartered in Upper Abkhazia, the only part of Abkhazia controlled by Georgia after 1993. It was forced out of all of Abkhazia in August 2008 during the Russo-Georgian war by the Abkhazian armed forces. Upper Abkhazia is a territory that has population of c. 2,000 (1–1.5% of Abkhazia's post-war population) and is centered on the upper Kodori Valley (roughly 17% of the territory of the former Abkhaz ASSR).