Georgian political figures

Last days I heard a lot of figures, number, percentages...

Here they are....

Results of the election:

1. Total number of voters: 3 527 964
2. Voter Turnout: 1 982 318
3. Ballots repealed 33 129

Amount of Votes per candidate:

1. Levan Gachechiladze - 509 234 votes, 25.69%
2. Arkadi Patarkatsishvili - 140 826 votes, 7.10%
3. David Gamkrelidze - 79 747 votes, 4.02%
4. Shalva Natelashvili - 128 589 votes, 6.49%
5. Mikheil Saakashvili - 1 060 042 votes, 53.47%
6. Giorgi Maisashvili - 15 249 votes, 0.77%
7. Irina Sarishvili-Chanturia - 3 242 votes, 0.16%

We can conclude that during the past four years a "protest electorate" has been formed. 44,23% of the voters, who participated in the elections, voted against the incumbent presidential candidate Mikheil Saakashvili, 44,23% ( and it seems even more, if not these "irregularities") are disappointed and disillusioned with the authorities.

Mikheil Saakashvili got just 53,4% of all the vores... It is nearly 70 000 votes over the 50% mark he needed to avoid a runoff

Plebiscites:

For North-Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) integration: 77%

The number of NATO supporters decreased if we compare with the result of a socilogical survey conducted in fall 2006. That time the figure was 83%...

For holding Parliamentary Elections in the Spring of 2008: 79,7%

The opposition representatives on of the Central Election Commission (CEC), 6 out of 13, refused to sign off the final results of the elections.

15 000 000 GEL - Amount raised from business to support new social fund

By the way, have you heard the latest rumour?

(I should mention here that rumours sometimes are very important source of information in Georgia, whether to believe or not, it is up to you, but they reflect the overall mood of the local population)

Surprisingly, but it was even published in the English-daily The Messenger (January 14, 2008)....

REASONS FOR NEW YEAR PRICE RISE DISPUTED

The price of basic products has risen since the New Year, with many facturers blaming transportation problems due to bad weather. Some analysts, on the other hand, say prices have been driven up artificially, by monopolies hoping to make economic gain in the wake of the election after pumping money into incumbent M. Saakashvili's presidential campaign. Are they trying to get back their political investments that they made in the pre-election period?

Inflation in Georgia is really a problem, which actually has not been tackled yet...

With inflation at over 11%, economists worry that the Georgian economy is overheating. But according to the economists there are various reasons for this doubble-digit inflation rate: rise of the prices in international markets (e.g. oil, sugar, wheat), rapid raise in broad money, inadequate implementation of budgetary expenditures, absence of the control over monopolies.

GEL 22,986,081 (about USD 14.4 million) was spent on Mikheil Saakashvili’s re-election campaign, according to the campaign's official financial records submitted to the Central Election Commission (CEC)

101 individuals and 162 companies contributed. According to the law, a presidential candidate can raise no more than GEL 30,000 (about USD 18,000) from an individual and GEL 100,000 (about USD 62,500) from a company.

First impression of the guests coming to Georgia....

Guests coming to Georgia can see the billboard with a giant figure of Saakashvili and the crowd of happy pygmy-looking electors. The effect of the angle makes you understand at once who the host in this home is. Going along the road from the airport to the city, i.e. the street after George Bush the junior, one may see only campaign placards for Saakashvili. It seems they are stuck to each lamp-post. “Where are the rest candidates?” I ask the taxi driver. He keeps silence for long. I start to think he forgot Russian or maybe local intellectuals now translate their thoughts into English first and then into Russian.…Suddenly my driver pulls up near a fence stuck with small A4 format posters showing the candidate for presidency Gamkrelidze (number 3 in the ballot paper). “There you are!” the driver says proudly and we keep on moving. I laugh and so does he. We say no more of politics.

I can understand everything, but to spend 14,1 MILLLION USD for the presedential campaign in Georgia???? Does it mean that the winner will be a person, who has more money and financial suppoters than those who has no millions of USD??? It used to be a real problem in Latvia several years ago before the Parliament had adopted a law on spending cap for the pre-election campaing for the political parties. Although, we still have such kind of problems, but at least we are moving to the right direction...

LATVIAN EXPERIENCE

In 2006, for the first time Saeima elections were held in Latvia by observing limitations to a pre-election expenditures amount stipulated by the Law on Financing Political Organisations (Parties) in 2004. A political organisation or an association of political organisations, which has submitted a list of its parliament member candidates to Saeima elections in five electoral districts, may spend for its pre-election expenditures an amount not exceeding LVL 0.20 (1 USD = 0,479 LVL) per elector in the previous Saeima elections. If a political organisation (political party) or an association of political organisations submits a list of its candidates in individual electoral districts only, it may use for pre-election expenditures an amount not exceeding LVL 0.20 per elector in each relevant electoral district in the previous Saeima elections. In the elections of 2006, the maximum permissible expenditures for pre-election campaigning when promoting candidates in the five electoral districts were equal to LVL 279,631.20 (around 558 000 USD).

The most important introduction to the Law in 2006 was the obligation of political parties to pay funds to the state budget in an amount corresponding to the exceeded pre-election expenditures amount.

The Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (KNAB) is mandated to control whether activities of political parties are in compliance with law. The objective of restrictions stipulated in the Law on Financing Political Organisations (Parties) is to ensure equal conditions at the greatest degree possible for in realization of pre-election campaigning and in influencing the will of electors. The observance of law in the system of parliamentary democracy ensures legal reliance that all parties involved have equal possibilities and no preferential treatment is provided only for few while it is not available for others.

By evaluating funds actually spent by political parties which took part in Saeima elections, the Bureau has established that five political parties or their associations have exceeded the amount of pre-election expenditures provided for in law:

People's Party - 529, 980 LVL

Latvia's First Party - 401, 610 LVL

Harmony Centre - 4,464 LVL

Green and Farmer's Union - 3,351 LVL

New Era - 2,087 LVL

It was a HUGE scandal, when our PM Aigars Kalvitis, who actually was and is the head of the party of the ruling colation People's Party wanted to dismiss the head of KNAB Aleksejs Loskutovs on the basis that there were some minor irregularities in the bookkeeping (not corruption and embezzelment, but some technical problems in the management of finances for the special operations). Everybody knew that this was just an official reason to dismiss rather popular in the society and successful investigator. Moreover, only Saeima (Latvian Parliament) can nominate and dismiss the head of KNAB. Even General Prosecutor Janis Maizitis named the action of the PM as illegal, not to mention mass protests in the downtown of Riga - smth unsual for Latvia. As a result the government was dissolved, Kalvitis stepped down and we have the new Cabinet of Ministers, new PM.. The problem is that we have the same parties in the coalition, just the faces are different (although some of them, includindg our new PM Ivars Godmanis, had occupied previously the same positions). But anyway system, however not perfect and woth some drawbacks, proved to be successful and I do hope that local elections scheduled for the next year will be free of money influence on voters.

Georgia has been insisting so far on the need to use the best practice and experience of the Baltic states, including Latvia, why not to set up the same Anti-Corruption Bureau, completely independet from the executive power? Why not to adopt the law on the financial limitations for the parties and presidential candidates during the pre-election campaigns?

I have noticed that Georgia sometimes repeats the same mistakes, which we made, but I am going to lay down my thoughts on this in my next post...