Georgia’s breakaway South Ossetia region held a tightly contested presidential election run-ff on Sunday, after none of the candidates passed the 50-percent threshold needed for a first round victory.
Anatoly Bibilov, the region’s emergencies minister who is seen as Moscow’s favored candidate, and Alla Dzhioyeva, South Ossetia’s former education minister, are competing for the top job in the first leadership poll in the rebel region since Russia recognized it as an independent state after a brief war with Georgia in 2008.
Incumbent President Eduard Kokoity, a former wrestling champion who won unrecognized presidential elections in the region in 2001 and again in 2006, was barred from seeking a third term.
Bibilov and Dzhioyeva won slightly over 25 percent of the vote each in the first round on November 13 which was dismissed as illegitimate by Georgia and the West.
Polls will close at 8:00 pm [16:00 GMT].
By 15:00 local time [11:00 GMT] voter turnout was at around 50 percent.
The first official results are due on Monday morning.
