Opposition Leader Comments on ‘Compromising Footage’
Koba Davitashvili, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, has admitted that he received USD 20 000 from someone, but denied that the money was meant to include this person in the party list ahead of local self-governance elections.
Georgian television stations broadcast hidden camera footage showing a man named Aladin Mirzaev giving Davitashvili a bunch of money during a meeting in a Tbilisi restaurant.
After the footage was aired, Koba Davitashvili said at a news conference that the meeting took place in May 2006 after Conservative Party activist Akaki Kapanadze told him that Mirzaev wanted to financially contribute to the party’s fund.
Kapanadze, described as chief of the Conservative Party headquarters in the Shida Kartli region, handed over the hidden camera footage to television stations on October 12. In a letter accompanying the tape, Kapanadze says that he organized the meeting and shot the footage.
“This May, Akaki Kapanadze arranged a meeting with a man who told us that he wanted to financially assist the [Conservative] Party and wanted to be actively involved in political life. At that time no election date was yet announced and no election bloc [with the Republican Party] was yet formed and no election fund was yet set up. A man just wanted to contribute and I agreed. What is illegal here?” Koba Davitashvili said.
He accused the authorities of “planting an agent” in the Conservative Party – Akaki Kapanadze – who was trying “to provoke the party leadership into some kind of illegal actions, but failed.”
“Our [election bloc of Republican and Conservative parties’] 130 000 votes, garnered in the local elections, scared the authorities and that is why they unveiled this tape now,” Davitashvili said.
Davitashvili said that Mirzaev “was not interested in the local elections at all.”
“We put him in the party list just to show our gratitude towards his [financial contribution],” Davitashvili said.
Mirzaev was number five in the party-list of the Republican and Conservative election bloc.
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