"THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU VOTE…"

The early presidential election will take place on 5 January 2008. The election campaign started officially on 11 December 2007, the deadline for registration of candidates for the top political post in the country. The Georgian Central Electoral Commission officially declared that there are seven candidates for president:  Mikheil Saakashvili from the National Movement party, Davit Gamqrelidze from the New Right party, Levan Gachechiladze from the union of nine opposition parties, Shalva Natelashvili from the Labour Party, Irina Sarishvili from the Imedi movement, Giorgi Maisashvili from the Party of the Future, and Arkadi (Badri) Patarkatsishvili, who was nominated by the Initiative Group of citizens. The Georgian Central Electoral Commission assigned to all seven candidates for president their respective numbers, under which they will take part in the campaign and appear on the ballot lists. According to Georgian law, the political groups which took part in previous elections can keep the numbers under which they ran. Saakashvili used this provision and kept his No 5, under which his party ran in the 2003 parliamentary elections.  Gamqrelidze also remains No 3, and Labour Party leader Natelashvili - No 4. The remaining candidates drew lots and received the following numbers: Gachechiladze - No 1, Maisashvili No 6, Patarkatsishvili No 2 and Sarishvili No 7.

61.1% against 5.2%

Let us remind readers that earlier, according to Georgian law, Mikheil Saakashvili resigned from the presidential post, and his duties are being carried out by the Speaker of Parliament, Nino Burjanadze. As for the former president himself, he has presented his programme, Georgia Without Poverty. "In the last four years, a great many people in Georgia have much improved their financial circumstances, and their votes alone would suffice for me to win the election, but I want the country's poorest people to vote for me, because I offer them a realistic programme of employment, adequate pensions and social benefits," Saakashvili said. He promised that, should he be elected president, the Georgian economy will develop at an accelerated rate for the next five years, that "the average pension in Georgia will reach US$100 within the next two years, and hundreds of thousands of people will receive a package of free medical services."

In the mean time, sociologists do not expect a particularly tight race:  According to opinion polls, Saakashvili has a good chance of winning in the first round of the election. A survey by the BCG Research agency found that Mikheil Saakashvili would receive 61.1% of the votes. 5.2% of the respondents would vote for Levan Gachechiladze, 2.9% vote for Arkadi (Badri) Patarkatsishvili, and Labour leader Shalva Natelashvili would receive only 1% of the votes. According to the survey, New Right leader Davit Gamqrelidze (0.9%) and Party of the Future's Gia Maisashvili (0.4%) would receive even fewer votes. The "others" box, which meant Imedi movement leader, Irina Sarishvili, was ticked by only 0.3% of voters.

Of course, the situation may change by 5 January - after all, 29.5% of the Georgian voters are undecided about whom they will vote for.  But even the chances of Saakashvili's best supported opponent should not be overestimated, even if he manages to win over all those now undecided, especially as the Georgian opposition has failed to accomplish its main goal of agreeing upon a single candidate. Despite the fact that Levan Gachechiladze is called the united opposition candidate, there is, in reality no unity at all:  Irina Sarishvili, Shalva Natelashvili and Badri Patarkatsishvili are also running for president. The only "PR trump card" which Levan Gachechiladze managed to secure was the support of former Defence Minister, Irakli Okruashvili.  He was recently elected honorary chairman of the For United Georgia movement, which he founded on 25 September and which is currently a member of the opposition alliance.

Rash promises

The Russian mass media, however, are paying greatest attention to the election campaign of Badri Patarkatsishvili, who is presenting himself as a combination of Roman Abramovich and Viktor Anpilov. He announced the main plank of his programme: free electricity and natural gas, up to a certain consumption limit, for every Georgian family, in a programme on Imedi radio. "I will pay for the basic amounts of electricity and natural gas consumed from my own funds until realistic tariffs are set," Patarkatsishvili announced. He also promised to buy up the entire citrus and grape crop in Georgia next year because, as he said, "it is not the farmers' fault that foreign markets are now blocked to them and that imported produce, which is coming here because of low import duties, is driving out local goods." The unemployed in Georgia will not be neglected either. "In the initial stage, each jobless person will be paid no less than 600 lari (about US$380) per month. At the same time, new jobs will be created," Patarkatsishvili said.

To resolve the demographic problem in Georgia, the businessman promised that he would pay every family 3,000 lari ($1,890) for their first child, 4,000 ($2,520) for the second child, and 5,000 ($3,150) for each subsequent child.  "I have never had any ambition to become a government official, still less the President of Georgia, but everyone can see that a criminal group wants to take power to subjugate us all, which is why I have decided to challenge that venal group and run for president," Interfax quoted Patarkatsishvili's as saying.

The government warned everyone, however, that making such promises thoughtlessly is a risky business, and believing them is almost hopeless gullibility. "Patarkatsishvili's promises to pay the people's utility bills and benefits to the jobless from his own pocket can be viewed as an attempt to bribe the voters, which is an illegal act and should be discussed by the Central Electoral Commission," Levan Bezhashvili, chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Legal Issues and one of the heads of Mikheil Saakashvili's campaign headquarters, said.  He also warned that should Patarkatsishvili win, he might well keep his promises, but then he will "begin recouping at Georgia's expense."

Patarkatsishvili's headquarters retaliated by complaining about acts of provocation against their candidate by the authorities. One of the heads of his campaign headquarters, Parliament Member Gocha Jojua, said that, after Patarkatsishvili's interview with Radio Imedi, hundreds of people gathered in front of his mansion in Tbilisi, demanding the benefits that he promised. Then Patarkatsishvili's representative at the Georgian Central Electoral Commission, Levan Chkheidze, set about categorically denying the rumours that headquarters staff were handing out money to people and described the incident as an act of provocation. "The government intentionally spread the rumours. I have already heard one version: that our headquarters are handing out $300 apiece, and if voters go to any of the banks and express their support for Patarkatsishvili, they will immediately receive $10,000. As Patarkatsishvili's official attorney, I must say that no material assistance can be provided to voters before the 5 January presidential election, because this would qualify as an attempt to bribe voters," Chkheidze explained. It remains unclear, however, whether or not the presidential race can be won by generous promises, especially considering that, simultaneously with the election, a plebiscite will be held in Georgia, in which voters will be asked: "Should Georgia become a member state of NATO?" According to the survey, 84.2% of respondents have already made up their minds to say "Yes." And, as we know, a pro-Western course in the country is associated with Mikheil Saakashvili.

Risky moves

In the mean time, as many observers note, this campaign stands to change the balance of power within the ethnic Azeri community in Georgia in a big way because of an unexpected political manoeuvre by Fazil Aliyev, who first announced an intention to run for president and then withdrew his candidature. To boot, leader of the National Assembly of Georgian Azeris, Dasqin Gulmammadov, who headed Fazil Aliyev's campaign headquarters, was arrested by the Georgian National Security Ministry.

After that, Ali Babayev, chairman of the public association, Georgia Is My Homeland, gave an interview to the Azerbaijani mass media, in which he said that, in his opinion, Fazil Aliyev and Dasqin Gulmammadov were taking part in some political game. "Unfortunately, the fact that D. Gulmammadov and F. Aliyev entered the Georgian political arena as a team in the run-up to the presidential election has been of no benefit to Georgian Azeris. If F. Aliyev really intended to take part in the Georgian presidential election, and if this was why he nominated himself, he should not have withdrawn. He should have gone all the way through on this issue," Babayev said. At the same time, in Babayev's assessment, the behaviour of Dasqin Gulmammadov, who slandered all the public associations of ethnic Azeris in Georgia by calling them extremist and intending to dissolve Georgia, was "indecent." "Of course, that is as far from the truth as it can get. I understand D. Gulmammadov and F. Aliyev, who are resentful of the incumbent Georgian authorities for their exile from Georgia in the past. This is why both men take such a radical anti-government position.  But this does not give them the right to slander all the other public associations of ethnic Azeris, which do not sling mud at the Saakashvili regime, but prefer to work hard to protect the rights of ethnic Azeris in Georgia," Mr. Babayev stressed.

In the opinion of many analysts, the rivalry between different organizations within the ethnic Azeri community of Georgia, as well as the ever-present risk that they will become embroiled in Georgia's political "showdowns," are increasingly serious problems today. To cap it all, President Bush's National Security Adviser, Stephen Headley, called not only the ethnic Armenian, but also the ethnic Azeri community of Georgia, "pro-Russian minorities."  Needless to say, building up feeling against the ethnic Azeri community in Georgia is a sure-fire way of thwarting all the recent, much-publicized communications projects.  And in this light, the "electoral oddities" take on a different complexion.