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Month: November 2024
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The Daily Beat: 31 October
A leading U.S. polling, data, and strategy consulting firm HarrisX has published a final 2024 elections exit poll analysis, which it says raises questions about “statistically unexplainable data discrepancies by the Central Election Commission amounting to over 8 percent of the total vote, or at least 172,523 raw votes, across a minimum of 27 districts.” The discrepancy “cannot be explained by statistical variance, pointing to possible voting irregularities,” the analysis suggests.
Congressman Mike Turner (R-OH), Head of the U.S. delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, and Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA), Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, issued the joint statement regarding the October 26 elections saying that pre-election period was marred by “reports of vote buying, voter intimidation, abuse of administrative resources, and questionable appointments to election oversight boards” and that the elections “move Georgia significantly further away from joining NATO and the European Union.”
Reports have surfaced that Alexander Malkevich, the founder of a Russian propaganda network in the occupied Ukrainian territories was in Tbilisi on October 26, the day of the parliamentary elections. The international media watchdog Reporters Without Borders was among those who broke the news noting that the organization “is alarmed by the role of this Kremlin’s relay in the proliferation of Russian disinformation in Georgia.” Malkevich who once was a close associate of the notorious Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is sanctioned by several countries for illegal propaganda activities.
Bloomberg reports that a Singapore court has slashed the damages Swiss UBS had to pay Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili by USD 282 million. Therefore, the damages UBS will now have to pay Ivanishvili have gone down from $743 million to $461 million. In a pre-election interview with the government mouthpiece Imedi TV, Ivanishvili referred to his long-running legal trials with Credit Suisse over access to his funds as evidence that he is “de-facto” sanctioned.
Commenting on the European Commission’s recent enlargement report, Speaker Shalva Papuashvili claimed that Georgia is “progressing on the path of EU integration,” further noting that the ruling party “evaluates the report positively.” He also said that according to the EC, Georgia has shown “good progress” in 12 chapters and “some progress” in 13 chapters, even though Georgia is in a parliamentary election year and “under constant obstruction by the opposition and NGOs.”
Hungarian Foreign Minister, Péter Szijjártó in an interview with Georgia’s pro-governmental Imedi TV, expressed his government’s support for Georgian Dream’s government and its policy, brushing away questions marks about the legitimacy of recent elections in Georgia and slamming the Western criticism of GD adopted controversial laws. He urged Georgian leaders to focus on the will of their voters rather than European Union standards or liberal viewpoints.
Six international press freedom watchdogs issued a joint statement expressing deep concern about election-related incidents, including intimidation, threats, and physical and verbal assaults against journalists in Georgia. The statement urges Georgian authorities “to end attacks on journalists and to thoroughly investigate all incidents of violence,” while calling on the international community to “place effective pressure on Georgia to uphold press freedom and secure a safe environment for journalists.”
The Data of the Day
Rapid estimates released by the National Statistics Office indicate that Georgia’s estimated real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate amounted to 8.3% for September 2024 compared to the corresponding period of the previous year.
According to Geostat, the following activities contributed significantly to growth: construction; financial and insurance activities; transportation and storage; and trade. The decline was registered in the energy sector.
