GD’s Candidate Wins Gardabani Gamgebeli Election

Georgian Dream ruling coalition candidate won elections for Gardabani municipality head (gamgebeli), held on January 28, with 70.15% of votes, defeating his only rival in the race from opposition UNM party, who garnered 29.85%.

Returns from all 64 polling stations in Gardabani municipality, located in the Kvemo Kartli region, showed GD’s Gocha Jamarauli with 16,104 votes and UNM’s Besik Kakhabrishvili with 6,851 votes.

33.13% of 71,847 voters, registered in the Gardabani municipality, turned out at polling stations, according to the Central Election Commission. No minimum turnout threshold is set for the polls to be valid.

“Results show that GD maintains high rating and remains dominant political force and UNM is a bankrupt political force, which will no longer be an important factor in the Georgian politics after October, 2016 parliamentary elections,” Irakli Kobakhidze, executive secretary of the Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party, said.

MP Sergo Ratiani, executive secretary of UNM, said that the ruling coalition won the election in Gardabani through applying “all the methods – administrative resources, the State Security Service, intimidation, scuffles at the polling stations.” "Now they won in this one district [Gardabani]… but serious defeat anticipates them in the October parliamentary elections," MP Ratiani added.

According to the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy, and Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), which monitored elections in Gardabani, confrontations which took place outside two polling stations, did not affect voting process, and in overall situation was calm during the voting in Gardabani. The monitoring groups reported some cases of procedural irregularities.

PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili commented on elections in Gardabani, as well as on upcoming parliamentary elections in October 2016, at a government session on Friday morning.

Referring to confrontation between GD and UNM supporters that took place outside the polling station No.2, PM said that there were “certain tensions” and called “on all the parties, including of course our supporters, supporters of the ruling coalition, to maximally lower temperature.”

“There are very important elections ahead in October. The world is watching Georgia with special attention and these elections will be of huge importance for us; these elections should further strengthen Georgia’s position as of the European country,” the PM said.

“We should prove that we are really European country and despite of any provocations, which might be initiated and which might be in someone’s interest, as the ruling coalition we bear greater responsibility and we have to prove that we can hold genuinely fair elections,” Kvirikashvili said.
 
The PM asked the Justice Minister to review legislation and to make penalties for “physical insults” stricter.

“As far as I know there are fines and quite soft punishments – I do not want us go from one extreme to the other, but in many civilized countries stricter punishment are envisaged for physical insults and probably we should make some preventive measures in this regard ahead of the elections,” Kvirikashvili said.

He also congratulated GD’s Gocha Jamarauli on the election victory and also thanked election monitoring groups for their work. The PM hailed Jamarauli for saying after winning the election that he would serve as “gamgebeli for everyone” regardless of their party affiliation.

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