Ruling Party MP Candidate Exits Race over Audio Tape

Valery Giorgobiani, the ruling party’s majoritarian MP candidate in the provincial Tsageri single-mandate constituency in western Georgia, has withdrawn from the election race after the nine-party opposition bloc released an audio tape implicating him in the intimidation of local self-government employees.

In the audio tape, purported to be a covert recording of a meeting between Giorgobiani and local self-government employees in Tsageri, the voice of a man, claimed by the opposition to be Giorgobiani’s, tells the state employees to vote for the ruling party or face dismissal.

“Although the investigation hasn’t been carried out, he [Giorgobiani] decided to withdraw his candidacy and he expresses a readiness to cooperate with the investigation and we also call on the opposition to cooperate with the investigation,” Zurab Melikishvili, secretary general of the ruling party, said a few hours after the tape was released.