The ruling National Movement party’s decision not to nominate incumbent Tbilisi Mayor Gigi Ugulava, who seeks to retain his position in the October 5 local elections, as its majoritarian candidate in any of Tbilisi’s constituencies has to a certain extent reduced the level of political competition during the polls in Tbilisi. A tense race is expected, however, as leading opposition politicians challenge each other in some of Tbilisi’s constituencies.
Incumbent Tbilisi Mayor Gigi Ugulava is running for Sakrebulo membership (and then for Mayor) on the National Movement’s party-list without direct competition with an opponent candidate in the majoritarian constituency, which means that he has a guaranteed seat in the Sakrebulo, as the ruling party will obviously overcome a 4% threshold necessary to endorse its candidates through the party-list.
The parties are running relatively calm election campaigns, and there have been no political debates between the ruling party and opposition leaders.
The Georgian daily 24 Saati (24 Hours) writes on September 20 that the authorities have chosen a tactic of “avoiding direct confrontation with the opposition.”
“Those leaders of the ruling party who fail to enjoy public support are not visible any longer [on TV], including MP Giga Bokeria, MP Maia Nadiradze, MP Davit Kirkitadze. Instead, President Saakashvili and incumbent Tbilisi Mayor Gigi Ugulava are regularly appearing in public,” 24 Saati says.
A tense race is expected in Tbilisi’s three-mandate Nadzaladevi constituency, where ex-Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili, the leader of Georgia’s Way party, will compete with Shalva Natelashvili, the leader of radical opposition Labor Party. The ruling party has nominated ex-football player Giorgi Nemsadze in the Nadzaladevi district.
Gldani’s three-mandate constituency will also see a tense race with Koba Davitashvili from an election coalition of Conservative and Republican parties confronting current chairman of the Tbilisi Sakrebulo Zaza Begashvili, who is a member of the ruling National Movement party. One of the leaders of the Labor Party, Giorgi Gugava, is also running in Gldani.
Tina Khidasheli, nominated by the coalition Conservative and Republican parties, will run in Saburtalo’s three-mandate constituency. The ruling party has nominated current head of Saburtalo district administration Davit Ioseliani to run against her.
Leader of the Industrialist Party Gogi Topadze is running in the two-mandate Vake constituency. Zaal Samadashvili, a writer, was nominated by the ruling party to run in Vake.
A month ago opposition parties (except Georgia’s Way) made a hand-shake agreement not to run against each other in the same constituencies in order to improve their chances against the ruling party. Many parties, however, have gone back on the agreement.
Meanwhile, election watchdog organization New Generation-New Initiative (nGnI) has warned that inaccuracies persist in the voter lists. nGnI said in a statement on September 15 that when it carried out a door-to-door rechecking of 100 000 voters in Tbilisi and 13 other towns and municipal centers, it discovered that 1 140 voters were missing from the list and 628 deceased persons were included in the voter list. 500 other inaccuracies of various kinds were also found by the group.
