Shaki Regional Scientific Center (REM) of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS) has hosted a round table titled “Let’s Give Life to Waste” with the support of the Shaki Medical College, Azernews reports. The event was organized within Green World Solidarity Year.
Day: October 27, 2024
With over 99.97% of precincts counted, official results published by the Central Election Commission show the ruling Georgian Dream party winning parliamentary elections with 53.92% of the vote, while the combined share of four opposition coalitions that passed the election threshold totals 37.78%.
The October 26 vote followed months of Georgian Dream’s anti-democratic and anti-Western drift and the official results come as a shock to many pro-opposition voters who expected GD to have lost support. Georgian Dream campaigned by fearmongering about “war”, instrumentalizing homophobia, and threatening with the return of United National Movement rule.
The polling in about 90% of precincts was conducted electronically, meaning that precincts featured electronic technologies to verify the voters and count votes.
Most of the opposition refuses to accept the results and vows to protect the vote, while local observers point to a “large-scale”, complex rigging scheme and international observers talk about flaws before and during the polling day. Violations noted by local and international observers include a pre-election climate of fear and intimidation of civil society, including the passage of the Foreign Agents Law, reports of vote-buying, violations of voter privacy, physical altercations, and controversial changes to election administration rules prior to the vote.
- Helsinki Commission Chair Calls on State Department to Investigate Allegations of Fraud in Georgian Elections
- Senior European MPs: EU Cannot Recognize Results of 26 October Vote
The voter turnout by 8 p.m. was around 59%, some three percent higher than in previous elections, but somewhat lower than the 2012 landmark race that brought Georgian Dream to power. While the opposition expected a higher turnout to be in its favor, the official results showed a drastically different picture.
Trends in CEC Official Data
According to official data, Georgian Dream won comfortably in most regions of Georgia but lost or was relatively close to losing in major cities.
GD had its strongest lead in the southern regions of Samtkhe-Javakheti (over 87% in Ninotsminda and Akhalkalaki districts) and Kvemo Kartli (between 67% and 82% in most districts). These include remote and ethnic minority-settled constituencies that have been traditional strongholds of Georgia’s ruling parties. However, the GD lost in Rustavi, the central city of Kvemo Kartli, about 20 km from Tbilisi, where it received 41.4% of votes.
CEC results show that the ruling party also secured confident victories in the mountainous regions of Svaneti (over 70% support) and Racha-Lechkhumi (over 60%), as well as Guria and Adjara regions.
Georgian Dream lost the Georgian capital to the opposition, receiving about 42% of the vote against the combined 46% of four opposition alliances plus 5.3% of the libertarian Girchi.
CEC data show close races in other large cities, such as Kutaisi (Imereti), Poti (Samegrelo), and Batumi (Adjara), where Georgian Dream finished below 50% but received more votes than the four pro-Western opposition coalitions. GD finished with 48% in opposition-run Tsalenjikha (Samegrelo), which is also more than the share of four opposition alliances combined.
The ruling party won the rest of Samegrelo’s districts, three years after it had conceded some of the municipal councils there to the opposition in the 2021 local elections. However, the Georgian Dream lost dramatically to the opposition in the overseas districts, where the ruling party received only 15% of the emigrant vote.
2020 vs 2024 Vote
According to official data, Georgian Dream secured 1,118,836 real votes, about 191,000 more than in the previous, 2020 parliamentary elections. The Unity – to Save Georgia alliance, led by the United National Movement, the former ruling party, on the other hand, received 210,895 votes (10.16%), less than half as many as in 2020, when UNM alone received 523,127 votes. This is partly explainable as the party ceded some of its leadership and voters to a new alliance, the Coalition for Change, which received 229,006 votes (11.04%). However, the combined total of the UNM-led alliance and the Coalition for Change is still 83,226 votes less than UNM’s 2020 result.
The Strong Georgia alliance, led by Lelo for Georgia, came out stronger than Lelo’s 2020 results, garnering 182,891 votes (8.81%) presumably due to the inclusion of several smaller forces in the coalition. It is the first time that the For Georgia party, led by former Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia, has participated in a parliamentary race. The party received 161,250 votes (7.77%).
The official results show the Georgian Dream’s share slightly lower compared to the Gorbi exit polls commissioned by pro-government Imedi TV, while the official results are in dramatic contrast to the exit polls conducted by HarrisX (for pro-opposition Mtavari Arkhi) Edison Research (for opposition-leaning Formula-TV), with the latter being known traditionally as most accurate in election-day polling. Both HarrisX and Edison Research had projected the opposition as winners.
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Irakli Kobakhidze, the Head of the ruling Georgian Dream party’s election staff and the country’s Prime Minister, on Sunday stressed the party’s “decisive victory” in Saturday’s general elections highlighted the “citizens’ choice of peace, development, and a bright, European future” for the country, Azernews reports citing Agenda.ge.
A day after Georgia’s parliamentary elections, in which the Central Election Commission declared the ruling Georgian Dream party the winner, senior European parliamentarians issued a joint statement with their Canadian counterpart saying “the elections were neither free nor fair” and that “the European Union cannot recognize the result.” The MPs call to sanction “those responsible for unfair electoral influence, intimidation and threats against the opposition and civil society.”
The statement starts by expressing solidarity with “many committed Europeans in Georgia” who share European values of freedom, democracy and the rule of law. “We remain convinced that Georgia deserves a place in the very heart of a united Europe,” the statement reads.
“But these elections were neither free nor fair,” the statement stresses. “The political climate in the run-up to the elections was incompatible with European standards of fairness,” it says, citing intimidation and threats to election candidates, abuse of state power, and vote buying.
The parliamentarians emphasize that “This election was about Europe or isolation, democracy or authoritarianism, freedom or Russification”. They note that “during the election campaign it did not become clear enough that there can be no continuation of the EU rapprochement with the ruling party and its policies.”
They say the ruling Georgian Dream party’s policy is “simply incompatible” with the EU. “The perfidious campaign of fear of a “global war party” that makes Georgia a second Ukraine, fell on fertile ground. There is only one “global war party”, you should call it by name. Its name is Russia,” the statement says.
“Against this background, the European Union cannot recognize the result,” the statement says.
In addition, the parliamentarians demand personal sanctions against “those responsible for unfair electoral influence, intimidation and threats against the opposition and civil society.”
The statement says the disappointments are massive, but despite this fact, the parliamentarians stress, “We must not now abandon the pro-European parts of society,” but should instead strengthen civil society exchanges. Notably, they reject the punishment of the nation as a whole, such as taking away visa liberalization regime with Georgia. “However, we fear an exodus of the well-educated, pro-European youth. Although we welcome you to the EU, it would be a tragedy for Georgia’s European orientation,” the statement says.
The parliamentarians also express concern about “Belarusification” of Georgia, saying if the GD fulfills its promises, there is a threat of persecution and prohibition of government critics, including politicians, media and civil society. “The EU must make it clear to the governing party that it will not accept this and in this case a complete termination of relations will follow,” the statement adds.
Finally, they say they continue to “strongly support” the efforts of President Salome Zurabishvili “to unite the country, to defend democracy, freedom and the rule of law and to preserve and secure the European future of Georgia.”
Parliamentarians signing the joint statement: Michael Roth, Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the German Parliament, Emanuelis Zingeris, Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Lithuanian Parliament, Zygis Pavilionis, Deputy Speaker and Chair of the European Affairs Committee of the Lithuanian Parliament, Charles Flanagan, Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Irish Parliament, Marko Miihkelson, Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Estonian Parliament, Rihards Kols, MEP, Bogdan Klich, Chair of the European Affairs Committee of the Polish Senate, Kerstin Lundgren, Deputy Speaker of the Swedish Parliament, Oleksandr Merezhko, Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Ukrainian Parliament, Ināra Mūniece, Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Latvian Parliament, Radoslaw Fogiel, Deputy Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Polish Parliament, Ali Ehsassi, Chair of Foreign Affairs Committee of the Canadian Parliament
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International observers documented vote buying and double voting in Georgia’s parliamentary elections on October 26, the head of an observation mission said. Ioan Bulai, leading a delegation sent by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), spoke at a joint news conference held by chief election observers on October 27 in Tbilisi.
U.S. Helsinki Commission Chairman Rep. Joe Wilson issued a statement on October 27 calling on the U.S. State Department to investigate the allegations of fraud and Russian interference in the October 26 Parliamentary elections in Georgia.
The Chair states: “I am troubled by the credible allegations of systematic violations in the Georgian parliamentary election. I am also disturbed by the well-documented efforts by Russia to sway the election. As such, I call on the U.S. Department of State to carefully examine the allegations of fraud, and if determined that this is the case, to make a clear statement to that effect.
Noting that “the Georgian people deserve a government that listens to and respects their voices” the statement further notes that the MEGOBARI act initiated in the US Congress “will seek to punish those who are undermining democracy in Georgia and support the people of Georgia in their quest for freedom and strengthened sovereignty.”
In May, U.S. Helsinki Commission Chairman Rep. Wilson, Ranking Member Rep. Steve Cohen (TN-09), Commissioner Rep. Richard Hudson (NC-09), and Commissioner Rep. Marc Veasey (TX-33) introduced the bipartisan Mobilizing and Enhancing Georgia’s Options for Building Accountability, Resilience, and Independence (MEGOBARI) Act. This legislation aims to bolster democratic practices, human rights, and the rule of law in Georgia, reaffirming the United States’ commitment to supporting Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic integration and countering the influence of authoritarian regimes, particularly Russia. It passed through the House Foreign Affairs Committee on a bipartisan basis and awaits passage on the floor of the House of Representatives.
The recently concluded BRICS Summit in Kazan, held from October 22 to 24, 2024, demonstrated a significant shift in the dynamics of global governance, trade, and security cooperation. This summit took place amid an increasingly complex geopolitical environment and was aptly themed “Strengthening Multilateralism for Just Global Development and Security.” The 2024 Kazan Declaration lays out BRICS members’ renewed commitment to a multilateral world order that prioritizes equitable growth, justice, and development in the face of rising unilateral actions and global crises.
