The cold war “by proxy” which pits the United States against Russia on the southern slopes of the Caucasus becomes ever more complicated. The parallel votes which took place on Sunday in the Georgian separatist region of South Ossetia have created division which will make a negotiated solution to this “frozen” conflict, by now dragging on for over fifteen years, still more difficult.
 
The independentist elections. The voting organised by the authorities of the self-proclaimed Republic of South Ossetia (recognised only by Russia) was held solely in the villages under their control; that is, those with an Ossetian majority. The people voted for a referendum on independence from Georgia and for the election of the new “president of the republic”. According to the government of Tskhinvali (the “capital” of South Ossetia), approximately 50 thousand people voted (90% of those entitled) and, obviously, the referendum was carried with a landslide of “yes” votes and the leader of the independence movement, Eduard Kokoity, was confirmed as president.
The United States, NATO and the European Union did not recognise the vote and criticised the elections.
For Russia on the other hand, which openly supports the Ossetian separatists and refers to the precedent set in Kosovo, the results of these elections can not be ignored.
 
The unionist elections. But, parallel with the elections for independence, the government of Tbilisi organised an alternative vote in the villages of South Ossetia under their control; that is, those with a Georgian majority. Here, an alternative referendum and the election of an alternative president were voted on. The “Salvation Union of Ossetians” NGO (linked to the Georgian secret services) declares that 42,000 people voted, hence not only the population of Georgia, but also many Ossetians in disagreement with the independentist authorities. The result was a crushing victory for the “yes” vote for South Ossetia to be integrated into Georgia and the election of Dimitri Sanakoev as “alternative president” recognised by the Georgian government.
Sanakoev will now form an “alternative government” of South Ossetia in the village of Kurta, a few kilometres north-east of Tskhinvali. The Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, will recognise it as the sole legitimate government of the region, thus weakening the political and diplomatic power of the South Ossetian separatist authorities and demonstrating that in South Ossetia there are those who would side with Russia, but there are also others who wish to remain in Georgia. The risk, however, is that of a formal split in the region along ethnic lines.
 
Cold war by proxy. According to the Kremlin, the new situation which has been created could even bring about a new war between Georgians and Ossetians. The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, fears that the parallel pro-Georgian government which will be formed in the disputed region will arm themselves with their own security apparatus and that in this way “the already-existing divisions between Ossetians and Georgians living in South Ossetia will lead to new armed confrontation.”
But, differently from 1991, when only the Ossetian separatists enjoyed external support (from Russia; and for this reason they won the war), this time the Georgians can count on the full political and military support of the United States and NATO. The stakes are far higher than the status of South Ossetia: Washington is competing with Moscow for hegemony in the southern Caucasus, a region criss-crossed by oil and gas pipelines from the Caspian Sea and the northern access point to the Middle East close to Iran.