Georgians chose “stability”

With 99 percent of the ballots processed, the ruling Georgian Dream – Democratic Georgia party is winning the Georgian election with 48.61 percent of the vote. In the second place is the opposition United National Movement, having garnered 27.04 percent. No other party or bloc has cleared the 5 percent threshold so far. Ones closest to clearing it are the Alliance of Patriots of Georgia which has 4.99 percent of the vote judging from the latest data, and Irakli Alasania’s Free Democrats party which has obtained 4.59 percent of the vote.

The Day asked Georgian expert David Beritashvili of the non-commercial organization Liberty Institute to comment on the results of the parliamentary election and explain the wild discrepancy between the results of two surveys, one of which gave the Georgian Dream almost the double advantage over the National Movement, while the other set the gap at just 5 percent.

“ELECTION WAS BASED ON THE RUSSIAN MODEL”

“To characterize this election on the whole, they took as their model the Russian way of holding this kind of popular votes.

“After the events on Bolotnaya Square, Vladimir Putin has mopped up the political field. Boris Nemtsov was assassinated, Mikhail Kasyanov filmed in bed with a strange woman, and Alexei Navalny has had a brother put in prison and is on probation himself.

“All other measures launched by the Georgian Dream movement have been successful. For example, the media has been completely subdued. Law-enforcement agencies are not only chasing the Rustavi-2 TV channel on orders from above, but if there are any complaints about the election, they will throw them out immediately, or block investigations. We witness a never-ending mop-up of the political space.

“Also, like almost all post-Soviet countries, we still have that fear of disobeying the boss. If you have to choose between making your boss angry and breaking the law, then, of course, it is more important to keep your boss on your side. That is why people will sign any protocol and any other document, if ordered to do so by their boss. That is why we have that total disrespect for the law. For example, someone is forced to add votes to some party and people are not afraid to do it, because, firstly, there is no real justice. One understands that the boss has prosecutors and courts in their pocket, and so this subordinate is happy to commit illegal acts if they are told to do so from above.

“We should also take into account that in these circumstances, a large part of the population does not have a high level of consciousness. For example, TV and online media offer a wealth of information. But each piece of news is not accompanied by a label saying whether it is true or not.

“Looking at this flow, an individual perceives it all uniformly and selects some arithmetic mean. If you want to get some idea of the event, and have two people who are telling their versions of it, and one of them is always deliberately lying, while the other is always telling the truth, and you do not know who is who, you will never get a real picture of the event.

“We have lately seen many recordings with unknown provenance being used. They include recordings of conversations between representatives of the National Movement or their conversations with Mikheil Saakashvili. Since these records were made illegally, without a court order, the criminal cases launched to investigate these conversations have ended nowhere. Still, it was creating a certain background.

“We have also seen constant propaganda against the United National Movement, flinging such accusations as ‘you are bloodsuckers and murderers,’ or alleging that ‘you have deprived Georgia of its dignity.’

“In addition, people who voted for the Georgian Dream en masse in 2012 are now seeing that their party is doing something wrong. For example, the Georgian lari has depreciated by 40 percent, the economic growth is 1 percent at most, and we have contraction by 1 percent at times. All large-scale infrastructure projects such as the construction of Turkey-China highway have slowed down.”

“THEY HAVE TURNED TO TECHNIQUES WHICH PRACTICALLY DO NOT ALLOW US TO CATCH LAW-BREAKERS RED-HANDED”

And in general, how was this election held?

“They have turned to techniques which practically do not allow us to catch law-breakers red-handed. Both individual and collective techniques of this kind exist. For example, an individual stands near the polling station with the list and ensures that all employees of the village council vote. If not, they start calling them by phone and ordering them to come there and vote.

“The collective technique is as follows. For example, if your village polling station will show a low support for the government, your road will never get asphalted, making you walk in knee-deep dirt.

“Then, for example, they may pay 25 lari to the voter so they go to the polls.

“In addition, your world-famous Ukrainian know-how of using hired thugs, or titushky, was used here as well. We saw a lot of them at work, veritable mobile units. Their use was especially widespread in those areas where a representative of the National Movement was clearly winning a single-member constituency. An electoral officer then called their superiors to bring them the bad news of an opposition victory, the thugs, well-known to all the station officers, literally broke into the station, and began to break the ballot boxes and scattering the ballots across the room. There was an observer from the UK there, she filmed it all on camera. Not content to take away her camera, they beat her up as well.

“Now it is clear that two parties are entering the parliament: the Georgian Dream with around 50 percent of the vote and the United National Movement with less than 30 percent. But very importantly, we have another party on the verge of clearing the 5 percent threshold, I mean the red-brown [i.e., Communist-Fascist. – Ed.] party called the Alliance of Patriots. This party is clearly pro-Russian and saying all the time that true occupiers are the Turks who should be expelled from Georgia. They do not oppose the ruling party, but rather the National Movement.

“If they do overcome the 5 percent threshold at this election, a group of people with these sentiments will become untouchable because of parliamentary immunity and they will say anything, anywhere, and nobody will be able to do anything to stop them.

“In addition, of course, some kind of a slush fund was in operation. If you look at the legal contributions to parties, the Georgian Dream was much better funded than the United National Movement which came next in that ranking.

“Leaders of other parties which got less support told us that businesspeople who were trying to finance them had the government sending financial police to raid them, seize computers for examinations and the like. In other words, the financing of political parties was unbalanced.

“And another important point is suggestive of a rigged election. I mean the fact that traditionally, protocols that came from polling stations were immediately uploaded into computers, and so the first data on the voting could be seen on the Central Election Commission (CEC)’s website.

“But on this occasion, the earliest results of voting began to appear on the Internet after the end of voting only at 3 a.m. It looks like the CEC kept these records to itself and then, having selected those it liked, started to upload them on the website.

“In addition, the local commissions did some amazing things. For example, a commission chairman stopped the count for a break and went somewhere. It is said that they found him in a car he shared with the head of the district administration. Obviously, he was looking for a way to get out of an unpleasant situation brought about by a wrong person winning. It was a nationwide phenomenon. It is almost impossible to catch such law-breakers red-handed. What law prohibits the chairman of the election commission from getting into the car with the head of the district administration and having a talk with him during the vote count?”

Should all you said be considered as evidence of the Georgian authorities’ intentions to establish a Russian-modeled regime in the country?

“The fact is that the Georgian Dream sees Western influence as detrimental. It is because the West is always demanding compliance with some rules. For example, the West calls on Ukraine to combat corruption, Putin will not call for it. Why would he? The main thing for him is to get people to love him. Therefore, from a certain point of view, it is more comfortable to be a friend of Russia than a friend of the West, as the latter will always pester one with some ‘nonsense.’ In general, the current system in Georgia is more tolerant of Russia. Although they probably understand that Russia will never give anything for free, be it grants or other assistance. Therefore they declare that they are on a steady pro-Western course. In fact, they are far from it. They have a channel of communication with the Kremlin, the so-called Prague format. They meet Grigory Karasin and Abkhazian representatives in Geneva. Meanwhile, Aslan Abashidze travels to Prague and also meets with Karasin. It seems to me that this is the format for them to send orders to Georgia.”

“UNFORTUNATELY, THE GEORGIAN NATION IS DIVIDED ALMOST EQUALLY”

Would the Georgians come to the streets like the Ukrainians did in November 2004, when we had a similar situation to what happened in your country on October 8?

“I just imagined how people were standing in the cold for a few months to protect their rights. We did so too. In particular, the Georgian people mobilized in 2003 because of the rigged election which triggered the Rose Revolution. Apparently, no generation can do it twice over its lifetime.”

So, does it mean that Georgia should expect another four years of the Georgian Dream’s rule, which some experts call a continuation of the agony of the regime?

“Unfortunately, the Georgian nation is divided almost equally, indeed. And we must not forget that the turnout stood at 50 percent, and the remaining 50 percent stayed at home. And those who stayed at home thought they were taking no part in it all. In fact, all these stay-at-home voters directly voted for the continuation of this regime. After all, the fewer people who come to the polls, the more significant the role of easily manipulated people becomes. This category includes civil servants, police, and retirees. Therefore, those who stayed at home did a disservice to themselves and the nation. Now we still have to endure the current government for another four years.

“It seems to me that the current government system is not very stable, and it will probably shake at some point. I do not think that this project will last for four years, because the current government governs poorly, the lari exchange rate is falling, there is no increase in wealth, and the economic growth is virtually absent.”