GEORGIA: President Re-Elected In Disputed Poll

By Kester Kenn Klomegah Reprint | | Print |

Kester Kenn Klomegah

MOSCOW, Jan 7 2008 (IPS) - Mikheil Saakashvili has been elected to a second term of presidency amid electoral disputes. He leads with 55.23 percent of the vote, followed by opposition candidate Levan Gachechiladze with 23.86 percent.

A second round is unlikely now that Saakashvili has gained over 50 percent of the vote, but the opposition says the election was rigged. Opposition groups have called nationwide protest and demonstrations.

Presidential candidate Badri Patarkatsishvili, a businessman who got six percent of the vote, said the election is “absolutely illegitimate” and that people will not tolerate “the cynical deceit.”

Fraud was reported not only during voting, but also in the election campaign, he said. “And even the data provided by exit polls is being falsified.”

U.S. educated Saakashvili (40) became a symbol of democratic reform after leading the Rose Revolution that ousted the communist regime in 2003. He then won a January 2004 election with more than 96 percent of the vote to become president.

The weekend snap elections were called after many Georgians called into question the President’s commitment to democracy.

Russia’s foreign ministry said Sunday it doubts that Saturday’s presidential elections were democratic because of the pressure on opposition candidates and because “administrative resources” were widely used.

Social protection programmes were launched on the eve of the election campaign, and there were reports that heads of public services instructed their subordinates to vote for Saakashvili.

“Reports from mass media, NGOs and opposition representatives have been coming on numerous violations of elections laws by the authorities,” the ministry said on its official website.

But some international observers say the electoral campaign was competitive and that the election was held in a free and democratic atmosphere, although there were some violations.

George Zarubin, regional vice-president of the Eurasia Group, a Washington-based political consultancy, told IPS that “broadly speaking, we very much shared the pre-election assessment (of fairness) by (official) election monitors. This matches what we have seen on the ground.”

Deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs Matthew Bryza insists the elections were democratic.

Georgia should continue building democratic institutions, electing an independent parliament, and strengthening civil society after the presidential elections, Bryza said. He said Washington will back the government.

“These are the first, really contested elections by the electorate to reaffirm democracy,” David Darchaishvilli, executive director for the Open Society Georgia Foundation, a group funded by philanthropist George Soros, told IPS. “In the past, change of power in Georgia either was fully predictable, due to the overwhelming popularity of one of the leaders, or through fraud.”

In this election, he said, “speculation that the incumbent falsified the results is groundless, since unprecedented local and foreign independent observers are in the country, and Saakashvili’s only chance to improve his image worldwide and locally is through a free electoral process.”

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a 56-nation security organisation, says no formal complaint of uneven distribution of media time has been filed either to the central election commission or to the state regulatory commission of communications.

The opposition mostly built their campaign on opposition to Saakashvili, Darchaishvilli said. “Country without the President” was the defining opposition slogan.

Georgia is an ex-Soviet republic of 4.5 million people looking to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the European Union. That move has become a bone of contention in its relations with Russia.

The Central Election Commission says voter turnout was 56.17 percent, with 1.9 million votes cast.