The Revival Union, led by Head of the Adjarian Autonomous Republic Aslan Abashidze, which is the only party with almost-guaranteed presence in the Parliament, will face strong opposition in Adjara during the November 2 parliamentary elections. However, ambiguity over the voter lists in the Autonomous Republic is the main problem for the opposition in this south-western Georgian province.
During the past ten years of his unilateral reign in the Autonomous Republic Aslan Abashidze has managed to secure guaranteed seats in the Parliament for his party, which regularly receives at least 95% of votes in Adjara in each parliamentary election since 1995, thus causing doubts over the free and fair elections in the Autonomous Republic. The votes of Adjarian residents are quite enough to clear the 7% barrier necessary to win the seats in the Parliament.
However, unlike the previous elections, now the Adjarian leadership will have to deal with much stronger opposition, particularly with the Saakashvili-National Movement election alliance, whose slogan in the Autonomous Republic is “Adjara without Abashidze.”
Davit Berdzenishvili of the National Movement party will run for MP in the Adjarian capital city of Batumi single-mandate constituency. Jemal Gogitidze, one of the leaders of the Revival Union, will be his main contender. Longstanding personal enmity between Aslan Abashidze and Davit Berdzenishvili adds fuel to election race in Batumi.
“We want to include Adjara within the entire election system of the country. The Revival has not had any alternative [there] since 1995 and now it faces opposition from a major force, such as the National Movement, hence they are quite confused and alarmed,” David Berdzenishvili told Civil Georgia.
The Revival Union, which claims to be the opposition to the central government, is permanently being accused by the other opposition parties in collaboration with the presidential-backed political groups.
The National Movement, Burjanadze-Democrats, New Rights and other opposition parties accused the Revival, along with the Industrialists party, of acting as a spoiler to endorse the guidelines suggested to the Georgian political circles by the U.S. former State Secretary James Baker to compose the Central Election Commission (CEC) on the parity bases.
As a result the Revival and Industrialists received three and two seats in the CEC respectively, while other opposition parties one seat each. Opposition claims that in return the Revival received from the central government guarantees to turn a blind eye on the ballot fraud in Adjara.
Aslan Abashidze, whose main goal is to maintain absolute control of his province, says he has saved Adjara from the bloodshed of civil war that flooded west Georgia in early 90-ies, as well as from the impact of Abkhazia war.
“The government of Adjara has created normal conditions for the population. The budget deficit occurred only this year, for the first time during the last 10 years and the leader of the republic Aslan Abashidze dismissed the whole cabinet,” Tsotne Bakuria, one of the Revival leaders, says.
However, the Revival’s opposition says that the intimidation of opponents and dictatorial regime hide behind the stability in Adjara. The National Movement claims that the non-transparent voter lists in Adjara is the main problem for the opposition parties.
Inaccurate voter lists is a major problem on the eve of the elections in the whole country as well. However, voters in other parts of Georgia at least can recheck whether they are on the lists or not, while in Adjara the voter lists have not been published in the polling stations yet.
The Central Election Commission (CEC), as well as the International Federation for Election Systems (IFES), which provided technical assistance to the Georgian authorities in developing voter lists, says that the lists from Adjara could not be included in the process of computerization of the national voter lists, because they were never submitted.
“The data center, where all the data entry process is done, has not received information from Adjara. We understand only from the newspapers that there was an announcement [of the authorities of Adjara] that the voter lists for Adjara were finished and there are about 280,000 voters. It is up to the central government and the Central Election Commission to deal with the issue of why the information from Adjara was not added to the national computerized lists,” Silvana Puizina, IFES project manager in Georgia told Civil Georgia.
However, only the opposition parties act as whistleblowers voicing concerns over the non-transparent voter lists in Adjara.
In the beginning of 1990-ies there were 216 thousand voters registered in Adjara. The figure increased to 235 thousand for the elections in 1995. 245 thousand voters were registered during the 1999 elections. The current number of the officially registered voters in Adjara reaches 280 000, but the opposition claims that this is quite far away from the reality and the lists are over-inflated.
“Aslan Abashidze understands that the Revival has no chances to clear the 7% barrier in the rest of Georgia and the success of the party depends only on the votes, recieved in Adjara. Abashidze will try to rig the elections through inflating the lists and blackmailing the voters in Adjara,” David Berdzenishvili said.
He said that the voter lists in Adjara are deliberately increased by 50% in order to rig the ballot on November 2.
The Revival Union dismisses accusation as “absurd and groundless.” “These lists were created on the basis of a special census conducted in Adjara. The 280 000 names were included on the lists. The Adjara’s budget spent USD 1 million for this process,” Hamlet Chipashvili of Revival Union told Civil Georgia.
He added that during the development of the lists, the Adjarian authorities did not rely on the Interior Ministry or other central structures, which are responsible for making the primary lists. Chipashvili said special groups conducted the census door to door to create the lists throughout Adjara.
Observers admit that the election administrations in the Autonomous Republic are well-equipped and are composed of well-trained staff.
The local authorities of Adjara, who did not allow the observers from the NGO International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy to monitor 2002 local self-governance elections in Adjara, vow to give a green light to the observers during the November 2 elections.
Georgian media reported that Aslan Abashidze requested director of the U.S. National Democratic Institute in Georgia Lincoln Mitchell during the meeting on October 17 to dispatch to Adjara “as many observers as possible.”
No serous obstructions of the opposition’s election campaign have been reported in Adjara so far.
“There definitely is a certain fear syndrome and intimidation from the authorities towards the local residents. But this is not a problem for the opposition’s election campaign. We hope that the local authorities will not foil our protest rally, scheduled in Batumi for October 23,” David Berdzenishvili said.
