Who Will Catch the Zugdidi Crown?

Op-Ed

Georgia is getting ready for the elections again. Round one of the upcoming battle between the political elites will take place on April 19 in the district of Mtatsminda, Tbilisi. Round two will be of a much larger scale, encompassing the whole country and scheduled to take place on May 19.

On April 19, the population of Mtatsminda will be electing their Member of Parliament, whose mandate previously belonged to now-President Zurabishvili. On May 19, mayoral elections will take place in the towns of Marneuli, Zestaponi, Chiatura, Khulo and Zugdidi. The Mayors from said towns have all left their position for different reasons: some found themselves in a corruption scandal, while others in a criminal. On the same day, the people will also elect eight MPs to the local councils.

Even though the scale and geography differ, the main controversies are expected to happen in Tbilisi and Zugdidi. Political experts believe that these will be like a general rehearsal ahead of the 2020 parliamentary elections. It seems that the battles in Zugdidi and Tbilisi will be ruthless and uncompromising, as both parties have already put into motion the heavy artillery: billionaire Ivanishvili by visiting Samegrelo and exiled former President Saakashvili appearing either on TV or live on Facebook every day.

Seeing Ivanishvili in the Megrelian village of Khibula, in the house where the first President of Georgia Gamsakhurdia died, was both bizarre and surprising. Ivanishvili hasn’t been seen in regions since 2013, when he visited as part of the election campaign. Apparently, the Georgian Dream is having hard times and is trying to bring Ivanishvili into the game as early as possible to make sure his card is played effectively.

The billionaire gave out promises: that Gamsakhurdia’s Museum and a new kindergarten will be built in Khibula, and that he would allocate 1 million GEL to the Zugdidi Eparchy for the construction of a church. Political expert Gia Khukhashvili believes that Ivanishvili is right in realizing that the Samegrelo region is exactly where things aren’t the way he or the Georgian Dream wanted and that he is trying to gain points by offering aid and by speculating about Gamsakhurdia’s assassination.

Pre-electoral experience and logic tells us that Ivanishvili will probably promise to solve the problems of the populations of the remaining election towns and villages, too, but his priorities are clear: winning in Zugdidi has much greater political clout than winning in Chiatura, while in the capital, it is clear that Ivanishvili is not going to get involved at all. We know this as the governmental party doesn’t have a candidate and is planning to give its support instead to a number of other candidates.

Sounds absurd, right? But, if we look more closely, we will see that having one more person or one less in a parliamentary majority of 107 MPs doesn’t much matter to Ivanishvili or the Georgian Dream. But the Mayor of Zugdidi, who influences almost the whole of western Georgia, is a different story, especially now, when the main candidate is the wife of Saakashvili, Sandra Roelofs. This is the very Sandra who defeated Georgian Dream and Ivanishvili in 2016 and who plans to repeat said success. The presidential elections of 2018 revealed that the billionaire has been almost stripped of any support in Samegrelo.

Dreamers vs Nationalists – this traditional conflict is central, but interestingly, other processes are taking place in parallel. Former Mayor Ugulava’s party ‘European Georgia’ and former Security Minister Alasania’s ‘Free Democrats’ will have a united candidate for Mtatsminda. In Chiatura, the two will be joined by former Parliament Speaker Usupashvili’s party. The oppositional front promises further agreements: it will not be appointing a candidate and will support Sandra Roelofs, while the UNM will not propose a candidate in Mtatsminda and will support the oppositional candidate. Such agreed actions are planned in all election districts.

Political analyst Vakhtang Dzabiradze believes that the union of European Georgia and Free Democrats is a smart move and that in the likely event of no third power showing up, the opposition should decide what their actions will be. If the opposition wants to have a realistic pillar to lean on, it should be able to cooperate, says Dzabiradze. “Let’s see what the first union in Mtatsminda will bring, then we can argue about what to expect in 2020. This is a test of powers and the electorate for 2020.”

By Zaza Jgarkava