All Eyes on Elections

Georgia braces for crucial elections on November 2 to elect the new Parliament. A total of 9 blocs and 12 parties will contest for 235 seats in the Parliament, but few stand a real chance of clearing the 7% barrier needed to win the party seats. 75 seats will be distributed among the candidates running in the single-mandate constituencies.

The letter of U.S. President George W. Bush sent to his Georgian counterpart Eduard Shevardnadze on October 31 urges for the free and fair elections, and underlined the U.S. commitment to Georgia. The United States has also dispatched several high-level delegations since summer to convince the Georgian leadership that holding free elections is in their best interest.

The Washington’s message was clear: If these elections fail to meet Georgia’s domestic legal requirements and its international commitments to hold genuinely democratic elections, the country’s representative democracy and thus its international standing would be endangered.

Around 600 foreign and 3,000 local observers will monitor November 2 elections. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) set up one of the largest and longest-running observation missions ever deployed to an OSCE country in September to monitor election process before, during, and after the election day in Georgia.

The local election observer watchdog NGO International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) recruited up to 3,000 volunteers to monitor elections. ISFED will also conduct the parallel vote tabulation, which is believed to increase transparency and decrease chances for manipulation of the election results.

However pre-election process in Georgia inspires less optimistic auguries for democratic outcome of the elections. Mass inaccuracies in the voter lists and violence during the political parties’ election campaigning topped the pre-election agenda in the country.

Despite the huge efforts of the donor states to assist Georgia in development of the accurate voter lists, even on the election day it remains unclear whether the voter lists are accurate. Mess in voter lists is one of the best ways to rig the ballot.

There is too much at stake not only for the country, but also for the politicians on November 2. November 2 parliamentary elections are seen as a springboard to the presidential elections in 2005, when Eduard Shevardnadze steps down. And victory in the parliamentary elections will be a good platform for the presidential elections.

Relations between the pro-presidential election alliance For New Georgia and the radical opposition parties are too tense and some observers do not rule out that these tensions might lead to destabilization in the country. Both the opposition and the government accused each other of aggravating situation on the eve of elections.

The recent opinion polls say that the opposition parties have a good chance to succeed in November 2 elections, however the race is too close to call, and observers say that none of the parties will be able to secure the majority .

Exit poll results of the elections, which will be conducted by the U.S. polling firm Global Strategy Group, will be known on November 2 at 8:00 pm (Georgian time).