DOUBLING SAAKASHVILI
by Alexander Iashvili, Maxim Yusin, Victor Zozulya
What the Papers Say
January 10, 2008 Thursday
Russia
HIGHLIGHT: HOW MANY VOTES DID MIKHAIL SAAKASHVILI REALLY POLL?;
An update on the presidential election in Georgia on January 5.
The Georgian Central Electoral Commission is practically through with
bulletin-counting. Judging by official reports, there will be no second
round because Mikhail Saakashvili polled over 52% votes and thus won
handsomely in the first. The problem is, not everybody in Georgia
trusts official reports. Opposition leaders are stone-cold confident
that the authorities rigged the election and threaten the regime with
mass protests. Is Georgia heading for another Revolution of Roses?
The capital of Georgia is bracing itself for lengthy protest actions.
United opposition leader Levan Gachechiladze claims that Mikhail
Saakashvili has stolen his triumph and promises to keep up protests.
He says the authorities must revise the outcome of the election and
permit another round.
Humanitarian as he is, Gachechiladze nevertheless suspended protest
actions to give courts time to rule on the lawsuits filed by the
opposition and void the outcome of the election in the constituencies
where observers of the opposition had logged particularly crying
violations. Once that is done, the opposition will begin preparations
for the second round of the election. Should courts prove intractable,
however, the opposition will foment another revolution.
Practically all Georgians are convinced that the election was rigged.
Is there anybody the regime may count on? There surely must be someone.
First, the military. Revolution of the Roses in Georgia made the
military the elite – with high salaries and numerous privileges
and benefits.
Second, the police and secret services. Saakashvili learned from
the mistakes of his predecessor Eduard Shevardnadze, the previous
president of Georgia who had found himself without support in security
structures when it really mattered. Police officers in Georgia are
pampered and humored by the state. Upper echelons of secret services
see themselves as masters of all, they milk private businesses, set
up commercial structures of their own (registered in their relatives’
names)… All of Georgia – all of the world – saw the determination
with which security structures were prepared to defend Saakashvili
on November 7 when a protest rally was brutally dispersed in Tbilisi.
Needless to say, the authorities deny all innuendo and hail the
recent election as democratic. They never miss a chance to quote OSCE
observers that called the election "free and fair". All TV networks
had a field day with the congratulations Saakashvili received from
his Ukrainian "comrade in arms" Yulia Timoshenko.
As a matter of fact, the Georgian leader proclaimed himself the winner
(and therefore president) without waiting for foreign observers’
conclusions or even interim data from polling stations.
Results of exit-polls published two hours after completion of the
voting sufficed. It was on this basis alone that the leader of the
past revolution told his triumphant followers to have no fears because
he had been elected the president in the very first round.
"Saakashvili charted a clean-cut scheme and followed it faithfully,
step by step," to quote Gija Tortladze, one of the leaders of the
united opposition (mountain-climber in happier days). "For starters,
he had Imedi TV network closed down. No wonder, because all other TV
networks support him completely. Take a look at how the whole campaign
was covered. Saakashvili’s 30-minute speech was broadcast in full live
and repeated again and again, ad nauseam. Speeches of candidates from
the opposition did not last longer than 20 or 30 seconds. What kind
of equality are we talking about?"
"A few words on these so called exit-polls now," Tortladze continued,
clearly warming up to the subject. "Contracted by four loyal TV
networks, sociologists from Saakashvili’s own team conducted these
polls. Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours – that sort of thing.
It goes without saying that the outcome was a foregone conclusion,
right? Why would the authorities schedule festivities for 8 p.m.
otherwise? They were not supposed to know the outcome of the election,
were they? Fact is, they knew everything in advance. The country
was informed of Saakashvili’s alleged triumph in the first round. It
was the first step in the campaign of nationwide brainwashing. All
the rest presented no problems. Count the bulletins "correctly",
come up with the missing bulletins, and so on…"
Labor Party ideologist Kaja Dzaganija said, "Judging by the bulletins,
there has been a colossal baby-boom in Georgia since the previous
election. There were 2.2 million voters in Georgia then and 3.4 million
now. It’s fantastic! India and China, eat your hearts out! Call
Guinness! The explanation is simple. The authorities registered as
voters more than a million of whoever left Georgia for good…"
P.S. Dictatorship in Georgia
"For want of a better term, I’d call what is happening in Georgia
nowadays "antidemocratic aggression," Gachechiladze said. "Georgia
may be heading for dictatorship, you know… We won’t give in. We
won’t abandon our native country. Without fearing to sound banal,
I’ll say that I fear nothing at all – not even death. Georgians are
not to be intimidated. If you ask me, even the West is thoroughly
fed up with Saakashvili. As for Russia, I’m convinced that relations
with this country should be based on mutual tact. It is mutual tact
that has been lacking in the relations lately.
P.P.S. Buying votes
An interview with political scientist Maxim Grigoriev who observed
the election in Georgia
Question: How did your organization monitor the election?
Maxim Grigoriev: It was not easy. The Georgian authorities announced
that no Russian non-governmental organizations would be accredited as
observers. We managed it all the same. First, Georgian youths used
a grant from us to organize a web site where all known violation of
the procedure in the course of the election were reported. Second,
we invited into our program some representatives of Ukrainian
non-governmental organization who had the necessary accreditation.
Question: And what is your opinion of the election?
Maxim Grigoriev: It was not up to Russian, Ukrainian, or
international standards. What we observed could be only appraised
as mass falsifications. I’m convinced that Saakashvili ended up with
considerably less than 50% – and that despite the atmosphere of fear
cultivated in Georgia and despite tame and servile media. Saakashvili
would certainly have been defeated in the second round.
Question: What violations exactly were logged?
Maxim Grigoriev: Saakashvili and his team were bribing voters –
there are no two ways about it. Nearly 1.5 million citizens of
Georgia received the so called presidential vouchers. Their holders
are entitled to a recompense for gas and electric power tariffs, to
free pharmaceuticals and firewood. It is possible to cash the voucher
and the sum amounts to two monthly salaries. In short, almost every
second voter in Georgia got this "gift" from the president.
The authorities claim that it all was part of the official presidential
program allegedly launched on October 4. That’s a lie, of course. We
know for a fact that it was only on January 5 that holders of these
vouchers found it possible to cash them.
Election in some territories, say with the predominantly Armenian
or Azerbaijani population, was rigged. We know that a lot of votes
allegedly cast for Saakashvili there belong to the dead or immigrants.