Industrialists Say its MP Candidates Intimidated
Gogi Topadze, the leader and founder of the opposition Industrialist Party, said that the party may pull out from election race, if the authorities continued, as he put it, “intimidation” of party’s majoritarian MP candidates.
“We will now summon all of our candidates in next few days and hold consultations with them to take a decision,” Topadze said at a press conference on May 1. “If the situation does not change and intimidation of our candidates continues, we may refuse to run in the elections.”
Industrialist Party runs in the May 21 parliamentary elections in a bloc with two other parties – National-Democratic Party (NDP) and Ertoba (Unity), the party led by MP Jumber Patiashvili. The bloc runs under the name Rightist Alliance–Topadze Industrialists.
The bloc has nominated its majoritarian MP candidates in 28 out of total 75 single-mandate constituencies.
Topadze said 14 majoritarian MP candidates nominated by the bloc in provincial districts have already complained that they “face certain problems and they can not run in the elections.”
“When one of the heads of our regional office is taken to police by security officers at 2am and is intimidated there, under such conditions it is of course very difficult to continue a pre-election process,” Topadze said.
Similar allegations have also been voiced recently by the nine-party opposition bloc, which claimed that some of its majoritarian MP candidates in the provincial constituencies were intimidated by the local law enforcement officers.
A pre-election monitoring delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE), which visited Georgia last week, said on April 25 that “reports and allegations of intimidation and undue pressure have reduced significantly in comparison with the Presidential election.”
“However, for the sake of public confidence, the authorities should fully investigate, in a transparent manner, all allegations of intimidation that are still reported, an immediately remedy any transgressions if they are found,” PACE monitors added.
