Ruling Party Names Two Reasons of Landslide Victory

Davit Bakradze, who led the ruling party’s list of MP candidates, said there were two major reasons why the National Movement won landslide in the May 21 parliamentary elections and ruled out it was a result of rigging.

“There are two reasons – one is the [ruling party’s] campaign and concrete steps that have been undertaken [by the authorities] after the presidential elections. We have been totally focused on a positive campaign; we had concrete promises to resolve concrete problems,” Bakradze said in a late-night political talk show, Primetime, aired by Rustavi 2 TV on May 22.

“Another reason is our political opponents themselves,” he continued. “Less people turned out at the polling stations [on May 21 then during the January 5 presidential elections] and those who did not come at polling stations were those with oppositional stance, they did not vote for Saakashvili [on January 5] and now they did not come out [at the polling stations], because they were frustrated with the opposition.”

He was responding to an anchor’s question what has happened in the country that had significantly increased the rating of the ruling party in recent few months. Mikheil Saakashvili won presidential elections in January with about 53% and the ruling party now, with most of the votes already counted, has over 59% of votes.