Enguri Bridge will be closed from October 23 to October 30, 2024. The de facto president of Abkhazia, Aslan Bzhania, made the above decision at the "security council" session on October 18. According to official information, the idea of ​​closing the bridge belongs to the so-called state security service of Abkhazia and is related to the October 26 parliamentary elections. “Possible serious provocations by radical forces in the direction of Abkhazia" was named by the de facto authorities as the reason for the decision, ​​without being more specific.

Accordingly, from October 23 to October 30, 2024, "special regime" will be introduced on the Enguri bridge and in the so-called border zone, which means that any movement in the direction of Zugdidi will be prohibited. As an exception, only Enguri HPP employees and persons in need of emergency medical assistance will be allowed to move. Those residents of Gali, who are currently in the territory controlled by Tbilisi, will also have the opportunity to return to Abkhazia. In the same period, additional forces of Russian border guards and Abkhaz special forces will patrol the entire perimeter of the so-called border.

Raul Lopua, the so-called secretary of Abkhazia’s security council noted regarding the restrictions that the collective West wants the victory of the anti-Russian opposition in Georgia in order to open the "second front" in Abkhazia. It is believed in Gali that this false pretext was made up to block opposition-minded Georgian voters living in the Gali district (according to the latest data, there are approximately 30,000 people living in occupied Gali, most of whom are believed to be in opposition to the current authorities of Georgia).

The decision to close the Enguri bridge for a week, compared to the previous elections, when the occupation regime used to close the so-called border for 2-3 days, is a serious deterioration. If earlier the population of Gali used to come to Zugdidi 2-3 days early to vote in the elections and stay with their relatives, now they are practically deprived of this opportunity.

According to the source of the Democracy Research Center, the people of Gali believe that the decision to close the bridge was made on the basis of an agreement between the authorities of Georgia and the de facto authorities, thereby depriving the people of Gali of the opportunity to vote in the elections. This opinion is supported by the fact that during the pre-election period, the propaganda of the de facto government of Abkhazia worked entirely in favor of Georgian Dream.

The Democracy Research Center considers that in order to eliminate suspicions among the population, the Georgian authorities should take proactive steps to give the people of the Gali district the opportunity to participate in determining the future of their country.