Laura Thornton on the Latest NDI Poll Results

Interview

The latest NDI survey is out, and full of surprises. 41% of those polled, think that Russia is stronger militarily than the US. An even higher number has no clue who their majoritarian representative in Parliament is. An alarmingly high 29% wants to join the non-existent Eurasian Union, and, among all cities in Georgia, Kutaisi wants the country to join NATO the most.

The ruling party customarily dismissed the findings, saying they have their own internal polls to rely on (oh, but for one glance at those!). GEORGIA TODAY and Panorama Talk Show sat down with Laura Thornton, resident director of the NDI in Georgia, to find out more.

What do you think the reason is behind the gov’t’s distrust of the NDI?

I think that skepticism about NDI’s polls has been around for a long time. It stems mostly from misunderstanding. Polling is a social science. You have a lot of absurd comments like “I was not interviewed by the NDI” and “who exactly did they interview?” People don’t realize that you do not need that many people to get a random sample. Or they don’t understand terms like ‘margin of error.’ So, some of it is just misunderstanding and lack of familiarity. And, of course, there is the ‘killing the messenger’ aspect: they just don’t want to hear it and they don’t like results. Rather than addressing the problem it’s easier [for them] to just discredit the poll. That hurts them in the long run, though. In the US, you advise the party or candidate to look at the lowest poll number and to work with that. Hope for the best, assume the worst. Whereas here, a negative poll number is seen as embarrassment or humiliation. It’s important to stand up and criticize the process.

Every poll forces us to draw conclusions. Keeping that in mind, what is the conclusion from the question as to whether people know who has more military might between the US and Russia?

I actually really like this question. We try to ask a lot of questions about foreign policy and we to ask a lot of proxy questions. Basically, this was a proxy question to figure out where people stand on Russia and the USA. My assumption is that this is less about size and military strength and more about relevance to Georgia. Georgians know what a Russian tank looks like but not an American one as it’s not relevant [to them]. The US could have the strongest military in the world, but you wouldn’t care unless it affected you in 2008: Russia’s military is more of a threat [to Georgians]. So, I think the military question is an interpretation of that threat. I also think propaganda plays a role. It’s interesting that ethnic minority settlements are more likely to think Russia is stronger as they are more likely to listen to the Russian news channels. We see the older generation also believing that Russia is stronger, originating from their own history.

There was also a bit about people not knowing who their representatives are in the parliament are and some general distrust towards the political parties. Can we assume that people are fed up with the existing parties?

People not knowing who their representative is isn’t unique to Georgia. I would say the majority of Americans would not be able to name their congressperson. I do not necessarily think it’s a bad finding. It does speak a little of a gap in communication and I do think it’s a motivating factor for a new force and maybe for existing parties to do more outreach.

29% of people questioned wanted to enter the Eurasian Union, which doesn’t even exist and is still at the stage of customs union. Why the rise?

We’ve asked that question for many years, and when we ask it separately, there is a 50% overlap between the people who’d like to join Eurasian Union and between people who’d like to join the EU; a group of citizens who says – yeah, I want to be member of the EU, EAU. When we’ve done focus groups, there is zero understanding what it is. As you said, it’s a meaningless union and has only to do with economic possibilities. I always joked we could even make up a union like the “China-Georgia Economic Partnership Union: Would you like to join?” [laughs] Putting in a binary question is really a measure for “do you want to be economically closer to Russia or economically closer to the West?” It’s more about economics and less about politics. Trading, citrus farming, grapes from Kakheti: a person just wants to sell their own products. That said, our focus groups have also always shown a cultural element of distrust towards Europe, whether it’s on values related to family, perceived ideas about the LGBT community, or the Church.

And finally, the environmental bit. We understand you are very passionate about this issue. The poll shows that it has become the number one concern. What’s your personal take on the challenges today?

I was extremely encouraged that citizens are aware of the environmental issues. Often, you hear the criticism that this is a minor issue, or it appears that only Tbilisi NGOs and foreign organizations care. Now we see that the average Georgians across the country also care about this issue. It is in the mindset and hopefully will bring support for changes to the environmental policy, pushing policymakers to act. I’m not an environmental expert, but we’ve seen plenty of studies coming out that talk about the worsening air conditions in Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Batumi. It concerns me. The fact we just got rid of the Ministry of Environment and put it under Agriculture, is all well and good if we don’t lose resources and policies geared towards the environment in the process. It has to be prioritized, and having public demand for it might help to push the government in the right direction to really address these concerns and not to hide them behind other issues. We have families, children, here, and the cost in the long run of health problems and other concerns will rise as a result of not addressing environmental issues. It is dangerous and we need to take it seriously.

Vazha Tavberidze