Gunpowder, Treason & Plot…

OPED

Surveys on political party ratings have long been a comedy in Georgia. Where else can a person come across results, where in one poll the support is 13 percent; 28 percent in the other, and 18 percent in the third? Especially strange when the polls are conducted almost at the same time and in the same locations. Truly miraculous, isn’t it?

Over the last month, the broadcasting company Rustavi 2, governing party Georgian Dream and the newly established party the ‘State for the People’ published the results of conducted surveys and the abovementioned wonders were detected right there: the first published by Rustavi 2 on June 28th, suggesting that the error of margin in the results of the poll conducted by the company GFK was only 1-2 percent. The first three places were distributed among Georgian Dream – 30.5 percent, United National Movement – 28.2 percent and State for the People – 11.6 percent. Two days later, Georgian Dream made the results of their surveys public and although the first three winning places were the same, the distribution of percentages was completely different: Georgian Dream – 35 percent, UNM – 13 percent, State for the People – 5 percent. Twenty days later, the State for People party, established by the former opera bass Paata Burchuladze, published their results, where the results were also different, as expected: Georgian Dream – 18 percent, UNM – 19 percent and Free Democrats – 13 percent.

As we can see, the only thing an observer interested in the local politics can see clearly is that UNM has not vanished from the radar, as opposed to what the governing party “faces” predicted. The rest is chaos, and therefore logical reasoning or making conclusions becomes impossible. Even the sociological studies conducted by such reputable organizations as NDI and IRI, having published their results in spring, are hard to count on. IRI polls suggested the following results: GD – 20 percent, UNM – 19 percent and Free Democrats 13 percent. The NDI results were different again, here the UNM was in lead position with 15 percent. GD got 14 percent and Free Democrats were in third place with 5 percent. Notably, the world bass Burchuladze had not established his party at that time, therefore his party is not in those studies. However, as experience suggests, this is not important in such studies.

From year to year and from poll to poll, it is always observed that in Georgia the number of the so-called “undecided electorate” is extremely high. Very often the Georgian “volatile” electorate, unlike American, French, German or Japanese voters, gives their vote not to programs, concepts or values, chosen even at the last moment, but to those who in their mind seem as “strong”, “doers” and “successful”. Therefore on the day of elections, the Georgian “undecided electorate” votes against those who seem “weak”, “confused”, “unsuccessful, “failed“, “losing”, or “fearful”.

The main political players know this very well: Misha knows this, Bidzina knows this, Burchuladze and Alasania know this, too. All four of them know better. Nevertheless, in this case the latter serve the function of on-servers, trying to get the most benefits out of the political battle of the Titans. GD and UNM will try to create another devastating shock to this, already oft-shocked country, in order to ensure that the competitor will blow up on the “powder keg”, just as UNM exploded on the prison abuse “keg” in 2012.

Taking this into consideration, let’s take a closer look at the intimate video scandal, which might work as an “ignition” when the elections approach. Other ways and technologies exist as well. To be concise, the only thing for us left to “dream” for, is that the upcoming explosion won’t destroy the whole country and drag all of us with it, since GD will not easily give up its power, nor the UNM give up the real opportunity of returning to the government.

Zaza Jgarkava