Saakashvili: Municipal Election to Show “Unity” Against “Ill-Wishers”

Voters cast ballots for local government officials throughout Georgia on October 5, following an appeal from Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili for a show of "unity" against harsh Russian sanctions.

"Those people who want disorder in Georgia are dreaming about seeing a passive Georgia on October 5," Saakashvili told viewers in a televised speech late on October 4, as transcribed by the Civil Georgia news website. "They dream about seeing a broken Georgia, but we should show them a Georgia full of hope."

Georgians' sense of optimism will be put to the test in the coming months, as Russia is employing all means at its disposal to inflict economic pain on Tbilisi. Moscow's latest move was to announce on October 5 that quotas for residency or work permits for Georgian citizens would be suspended.

Speaking to journalists in televised remarks on October 5, Russian Federal Migration Service (FMS) Deputy Director Mikhail Tyurkin said that after "carefully" examining Russia's labor market, the FMS had determined that there is no further need for Georgians to receive residency or work permits. Tyurkin added that although many Georgians claim to be in Russia for work or study programs, they are actually "criminals." In separate remarks, spokesperson Denis Soldatikov put the number of such individuals at "one out of every 100" Georgians, Russian media outlets reported.

The FMS has reportedly created a special department to track Georgians living in the country. Talks are also underway between Moscow and the Belarussian government about suspending visa-free travel for Georgian citizens from Belarus to Russia.

The measure comes after a string of sanctions imposed on Georgia over the past week after the arrest, and subsequent release, of four Russian military officers for alleged espionage. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The sanctions include the closure of transportation routes, an embargo on postal service, a ban on travel visas, and the arrest of Georgian citizens working in Russia. Russia's parliament, or Duma, is also working on legislation to ban money transfers to Georgia. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Despite the dire effects such sanctions could have on Georgia's economy, Saakashvili declared October 5 that Russia had failed to "break our schedule" for Georgia's local elections. "This is the first-ever full-scale local self-governance election in Georgia, so in a way it is a big democratic step forward," he told journalists after casting his own ballot at Tbilisi's 21st polling station, in remarks broadcast by Rustavi-2 television. "Our response to some over-reaction and irrational statements has been to move on."

The elections are being held in 69 different municipalities, including the Kodori Gorge, a strip of Georgian-controlled territory in breakaway Abkhazia, and ethnic Georgian villages in both Abkhazia and the breakaway region of South Ossetia. The city council elections combine races for both first-past-the-post and party list seats. Town mayors will be elected by the city councils themselves.

In Tbilisi, potential mayoral candidates include the incumbent, Gigi Ugulava of the National Movement Party, as well as ex-Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili for Georgia's Way and Conservative Party leader Koba Davitashvili, who resigned from parliament to run with two leaders of the opposition Republican Party for Tbilisi's 37-member City Council.

According to the Central Election Commission, turnout in Tbilisi stood at 28.81 percent as of 5 pm local time. No reports were available from outside the capital. Polls were scheduled to remain open until 8 pm local time. Official results from the election were not expected to be released until October 6.

In Tbilisi, many voters maintained that the spy scandal didn't influenced their vote. "[The crisis with Russia] did not make a difference to me. Why should it?" commented pensioner Mamuka Khukhia after casting his ballot for the ruling National Movement Party at a polling station in downtown Tbilisi. "We are a proud people and we have our opinion and that is how we are going to live."

The election has been promoted as a test of the Saakashvili government's commitment to democracy. While election officials reported a relatively smooth process with minor hitches, some local observers and opposition members charged that irregularities with voter lists, among other issues, were widespread.

According to both independent and government reports, the worst violations have occurred outside of the capital.

In Zugdidi, an election official was reportedly fired after he refused to allow an observer into the polling station. In addition, the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), a non-governmental organization that has sent observers into the field, reported an instance of multiple voting by an official in Chokhatauri, in the Guria region of western Georgia.

In Tbilisi, problems have largely centered around voter registration lists. At the 23rd polling station on Rustaveli Avenue, approximately 10 percent of 250 voters had not been able to vote by noon because their names were not on the station's list, Salome Kandaria, a polling station official, said.

Giorgi Chkheridze, an observer with the Georgian Young Lawyers Association (GYLA), stated that the GYLA telephone hotline has been jammed with phone calls about similar problems from throughout the country.

Other problems are equally worrying, he continued. According to the GYLA, confused polling station officials often turn to observers for assistance in filling out voting protocols. In one instance, at the 35th polling station in the Tbilisi district of Vake, an official protocol was stamped even while voting continued, Chkheridze reported. Too few voting booths in polling centers and people being allowed to vote without showing an ID are among other reported violations, he added.

Officials from the Central Election Commission were not available for comment.

Voter lists have been a longstanding problem in Georgian elections. Opposition candidates accused the National Movement Party of stacking the lists in its favor during last year's parliamentary by-elections. To solve the problem, the Central Election Commission began compiling voter lists in the summer. However, independent observers report that the lists were full of errors even prior to the election. The decision to move the election date up by two months merely complicated matters, they say. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive].

ISFED Director Tamara Zhvania says that voter lists have been her organization's greatest concern heading into the election. Many people may be registered to vote, but are left off the official list of voters, she said. "This is a really big problem. We cannot solve this problem right now because it is not allowed according to the election code," Zhvania said.

Under the new law, individuals can no longer be added to the list of registered voters on election day. The exclusion was intended to prevent double voting and manipulation of votes, according to Zhvania, whose organization supported the change.

Other violations were documented prior to election day. As have other observers, Zhvania targeted the alleged use of administrative funds for the National Movement Party's campaign, and the restricted timeframe for parties to conduct an election campaign. Tbilisi mayoral candidate Davitashvili and fellow bloc member Tina Khidasheli, a leader of the Republican Party, have claimed that patrol police in the capital city have torn down copies of the bloc's election posters and are detaining bloc activists, Imedi television reported.

For now, officials have limited their reactions to voter lists, however. In an October 5 press conference, CEC Chairman Guram Chalagashvili noted that he had met several people whose names were allegedly on the main list of voters, but could not be found on polling station lists. "We are trying to find out the details of the problem and deal with the issue," he said in remarks broadcast on Georgian television.