Georgia held a voting for the parliament on October 26, which was an interesting event by any means. Here are some facts and analysis.
The Georgian Dream party (Ivanishvili) claimed a 54% victory in the voting, getting 89 mandates out of 150 (that is not enough for constitutional changes.).
The four major pro-western opposition coalitions also claimed they won the elections in total, though the official count was 40+% of their total votes. The preliminary polls suggested a big win for the opposition, the GD announced 12% more than polls indicated, – while around 8% less for the opposition groups.
It is believed that there were hundreds of violations of the election law observers documented but for the first time in Georgia’s independence after 1990 courts did not support any such claim.
Observers prove that there was widespread violence around the voting stations against the observers, the GD ruling party (regarded as pro-Russian) used administrative resources in an unlimited way and much money was used for vote buying. GD also used the votes of the emigrated Georgians who were neither able to return home nor take part in the voting in the very limited number of voting stations abroad.
Total number of emigrated Georgian citizens is about 1 million, all voters. Only 30 thousand of them were able to vote at the consulates (out of 112 thousand registered – the opposition had a huge victory in the abroad vote). So the other votes were easy to steal. The vote buying and stealing was most easy and widespread in the biggest but the most economically vulnerable regions that are also champions of emigration and leaving at the expense of remittances and government assistance.
In 2/3 of the voting stations, the constitutional rule of secret voting was fully violated. Therefore, the voting on October 26 cannot be called elections according to the Constitution of Georgia.
The so-called electronic system (using the technology of the Venezuela-founded, US/international company Smartmatic) needed special ballot papers but instead, the paper that was used was not suitable for the special markers and it was possible to easily see the votes on the reverse side of the ballots.
In fact (one of the judges made an experiment and supported this claim, but the appeals court then annulled this decision) the choice of any voter was visible and it was possible to see who a voter chose. Very sadly but interestingly we see no investigation against the company if they assisted the GD in stealing the votes (or it was a fully local initiative – in both cases the Smartmatics bears a high responsibility, at least for hiding.)
Because of such violations the opposition and the President of Georgia refused to recognize the results of the “elections”, nor the international organizations or major democracies. The nations that recognized the election results include the PRC, Russia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua (plus neighbors and of course Russia and PR China).
The opposition refused to enter the parliament and most of them already officially abandoned their mandates.
The EU Parliament adopted a resolution that rejects the results and calls for new elections under international supervision.
From the night of Nov 29th protests erupted in several places in Georgia. In answer, the de facto prime minister announced the government’s suspension of Georgia’s EU membership bid until 2028 (understood by the Georgian public as a full rejection of membership).
During several days and nights, the protests were dispersed at around 7 am by a very violent force of police and special units. They beat up, used water/pepper cannons, and shot tear gas toward the peaceful manifestants, including women, children, journalists, and opposition political leaders. Tens of journalists were severely injured and many of them are still in hospitals.
So far the GD government achieved two results: 1. The election lost its meaning in Georgia. 2. Police can take any violent measures without punishment. At this moment it is reported that more than 400 people were arrested, beaten, injured, and wounded. Further increasing tensions can result in an unreturnable situation. Media reports that courts approve all the claims of the police against the protesters, mostly even without any evidence.
The violence was initiated by the riot police when they poured cold water with some poisonous content on the protesters. After they faced resistance they started beating and arresting the peaceful protesters. On some of the days, protesters also used fireworks against the robocops and shot toward the parliament building – this was used by the authorities for their propaganda saying there were revolutionary attempts.
Police brutally arrested some of the prominent opposition party leaders and accused them of the same blame for disobeying the lawful orders of the police. Such brutality and unconstitutional actions of the authorities increased the number of protesting people despite very cold weather conditions.
The results of the voting without all vote stealing were mostly in accordance with the dissatisfaction of the voters. They were alarmed by 2023 and 2024 protests against so-called Russian Law – or Transparency of Foreign Financing. Despite historically huge numbers of protesters, parliament adopted that law in June, which sent a clear signal to the voters where the ruling party was directing Georgia.
As it was noted, the polls by international companies predicted the Opposition four groups to win over the ruling party. That somehow made the campaign more ceremonial than practical, creating an illusion that the victory would be easy. Less attention was directed to meetings with voters, thorough observation was only possible in the capital and some more places. That encouraged the GD and the government to use several methods of fraud. Many protested violations of election law were not easy to prove and to prove they could have sufficient impact on the results was still difficult. The election law and the rules adopted some months before limited full control of the election process for the opposition parties and CSOs.
It is also clear that the parties and the observers were not ready for the new election system of party lists – the first time for such a system to be used. Converting the party campaigns from the previous system of parallel lists and district candidate voting to the full party list campaign required at least more unity of the opposition and a higher frequency of communication with voters in the entire country. The ruling GD party on the other hand worked to eliminate miscommunication and miscontrol.
Party programs (which I discussed with their representatives, except GD) with the Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) were not interesting, just bunches of populist promises – people were not attracted much. The GD party’s most important promise was that Georgia avoided a war and combined with a promise to prohibit opposition parties if it had a constitutional majority were the two major topics of their campaign. In total the election campaign was quite boring and inefficient, most of the meetings collected true believers and much less ordinary people.
What remained after the election is a huge permanent popular protest movement that is quite distanced from the active opposition politicians – several groups of business, art, cinema, theatre, IT, HR, education and training, and many others are standing together in freezing temperatures to demand re-election and release of the political prisoners. When I write this letter I hear students marching in my street. Nobody wants to live in Russian-controlled Georgia.
At the same time, this voting gave another lesson to the voters and politicians. We can even say, there is a transition period, the new generations should appear with new freer visions, more practical and out of illusions. Voters on their side have to guess this is their responsibility and future that is voted not just political parties.
Now, many things depend on the Western leaders to hold Georgia and not allow Russia and PR China to trap and swallow. In the previous decades, we saw the opposite – night dreaming of the West and their very active and aggressive adversaries. A hundred years ago soviets used the weakness of the West after WW1, and occupied Georgia for 70 years, the same scenario must be avoided by any means.
The EU and the USA already did or promised to impose sanctions on the major players. Though the de facto leaders have their hopes connected with the inauguration of the new president of the USA – a very doubtful idea. Many leaders of the EU or its member states already emphasized their strict vision. Georgians hope the events of the 1920s will not be repeated because of the current geopolitical turmoil, – we’ll join the EU/NATO and say goodbye to the aggressives around.
Continue exploring:
Election Rigging of the Parliamentary Elections in Georgia with Alexander Zibzibadze [PODCAST]
