SUKHUM. Jan 10 (Interfax) - Leader of Abkhazian opposition party United Abkhazia Sergei Shamba has said he is expecting the republic's parliament to make a decision on President Raul Khajimba's resignation.
"We are waiting for the Abkhaz parliament to issue an address to the republic's president demanding the latter's resignation," Shamba told Interfax on Thursday evening.
"No one wants a confrontation in the republic, and we seek for the situation to unfold within the framework of the Constitution," he said.
"All of us are expecting Khajimba's resignation," Shamba said.
Meanwhile, leader of the Opposition Forces Bloc and deputy of the republic's parliament Aslan Bzhania, who arrived in Sukhum from Moscow on Thursday evening, said at an extraordinary conference of deputies that he is calling for "the parliament to issue an address to Khajimba proposing to the latter to resign voluntarily." "We want to avoid any violence, we will deliver an address to the citizens and Mr. Khajimba, as I cannot call him president," Bzhania said.
Another lawmaker, Batal Tabagua, who also backs the opposition, said that "in the current situation it is advisable for Raul Khajimba to step down as president."
Deputy Parliament Speaker Mikhail Sangulia, in turn, urged his fellow lawmakers to settle the situation legally. "The case is being tried. Let's wait for a court ruling," he said.
In addition, deputy of the People's Assembly Leonid Chamagua said earlier at a meeting in the republic's parliament that Khajimba declined to meet the demands for his resignation voiced by protesters.
"We and the president discussed the situation and the demonstrators' demand that he resign and that a new election be held. He said he was not prepared to make that decision. The president called for thinking about how to defuse the situation," Chamagua said.
Khajimba himself told Interfax that the republic's authorities are doing their utmost to bring the situation in the country back onto the constitutional track.
"I am in my residence, and we are taking all steps to put the situation back onto a legal and constitutional track," Khajimba told Interfax on Thursday evening.
In addition, he made a statement in which he urged the Abkhazians not to yield to provocations, and, if necessary, pledged to declare a state of emergency. Abkhaz law enforcement agencies have been placed on alert, Khajimba said.