Tentative Date Announced for Local Elections, as Opposition Mulls over Tactics

Local self-governance elections will be held in early December, chief of the President’s Administration Giorgi Arveladze said on August 7. He did not specify an exact date for the elections.

Arveladze added that there is no need to hurry to hold the elections earlier, as it will be better if the newly-elected self-governance bodies assume powers starting from the new fiscal year.

The tentative date is slightly later than the one announced by the President this April, when he said that “local elections will be held in, or around, November.”

Officials from the Central Election Commission (CEC) say that so far no official notification about an exact election date has been received from the President’s Administration.
 
According to amendments passed into the election code on June 23, 2006 by the Parliament, the law no longer sets any deadlines for the President to announce election dates. The only stipulation is that the elections should be held no sooner than 40 days after the President announces the date.

Meanwhile, five opposition parties – the New Rights, Republicans, Conservatives, Industrialists and People’s Forum – continue consultations on nominating a single Tbilisi mayoral candidate to confront the ruling National Movement party’s nomination, current Mayor Gigi Ugulava, in the upcoming local self-governance elections.

Two opposition parties – Labor and Freedom – have announced that they are in favor of boycotting the elections, and have withdrawn from the consultations.
 
“We should follow the policy of a large-scale civil disobedience campaign, and boycotting the elections should become a part of this [campaign],” Shalva Natelashvili, leader of the Labor Party, said on August 7.

However, the Labor Party announced that if other opposition parties refuse to boycott elections, it will also participate, but with its own independent candidate.

The Conservative Party wants to nominate its leader MP Koba Davitashvili for the Tbilisi mayoral race, the Republican Party is pushing for one of its leaders, Tina Khidasheli, while the Industrialists are in favor of Gogi Topadze, ex-parliamentarian, beer magnate, and their own party leader.

The New Rights party is more in favor of nominating a non-partisan candidate, including ex-State Minister for Conflict Resolution Issues Giorgi Khaindrava or influential financial and media tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili.

“But all these nominations are on the very initial stage of consideration and nothing is yet decided,” MP Koka Guntsadze of the New Rights party said on August 7.

The daily newspaper 24 Saati (24 Hours) quoted Khaindrava as saying that talks about his nomination are “unserious,” while Patarkatsishvili has not yet made any comment regarding the speculations.

So far only two politicians have publicly announced their intentions to run in the Tbilisi mayoral race: current Mayor Gigi Ugulava, and Salome Zourabichvili, ex-Foreign Minister and leader of the opposition Georgia’s Way party. The latter has refused to team up with other opposition parties.

Opponents say that Gigi Ugulava has already launched his pre-election campaign. In recent weeks he has frequently appeared on television opening various facilities, mostly playgrounds in different districts of Tbilisi.