Georgia’s May 30 local elections are providing an opportunity to gauge the mood of tens of thousands of Internally Displaced Persons, many of who will be voting for the first time since Tbilisi’s disastrous war with Russia in 2008. The governing United National Movement has made some effort to court IDP votes. Opposition parties, meanwhile, have done little to attract support from a constituency that might otherwise be amenable to calls for change.
The vote is widely seen as the opposition’s best chance to strengthen its relatively weak position in Georgia’s regions prior to the 2012 parliamentary and 2013 presidential elections. The United National Movement headed by President Mikheil Saakashvili currently controls all of Georgia’s town councils.
At first glance, the estimated 20,000 IDPs who lost their homes during the 2008 fighting might appear a prime target for opposition campaign efforts. But opposition leaders maintain that a lack of resources -- and the sheer number (64) of local councils participating in the May 30 local elections – made it “physically impossible” to cover Georgia’s 36 IDP settlements.
In settlements close to the administrative border with South Ossetia, there were few signs of campaign activity, or the upcoming elections. The few posters that were visible extolled the virtues of the United National Movement.
In Shavshvebi, a hamlet of 177 families, a brightly painted pink voting station stood out among rows of identical, cream colored houses and tiny garden plots. New posters of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, featuring Tbilisi Mayor Gigi Ugulava’s slogan, “gasaketebeli kidev bevria” (“There’s still a lot to do”), were visible outside a few houses and a boarded-up store, but there was no sign of any opposition party posters or campaign materials.
Spiridon Romelishvili, a middle-aged IDP originally from the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, said no one from any political party has made the hour-long drive from Tbilisi -- or 20 minute drive from the regional seat of Gori -- to speak with voters at the settlement.
“No one comes. Not from the government or from the opposition,” said Romelishvili, taking a break from shoveling rocks off a dirt path that leads to a neighboring village. Romelishvili added that everything he knows about the May 30 election he learned from television. “If they had come, of course, I would have wanted to talk with them,” he said, referring to opposition candidates. “But no one is interested in us, in the situation here.”
Residents in Khurvaleti, a larger IDP settlement a few kilometers closer to Tbilisi, noted that regional candidates from the United National Movement visit regularly. In sharp contrast, no one from the opposition has visited in the months since the IDPs resettled there. “No one from the opposition has ever come to ask how we are,” said Jono Doliashvili, a displaced farmer from Ksuisi in South Ossetia.
Eka Otniashvili, a member of the Khurvaleti Election Commission, claimed that local IDP voters would have given the opposition a fair listen. “Half of the population lives without electricity right now. Perhaps the opposition can’t do anything, but it would be good if they came and spoke with us,” Otniashvili said.
Opposition leaders claim that tight finances and a lack of volunteers hindered their ability to campaign in many villages, not just in IDP settlements.
Deputy Parliamentary Speaker Levan Vepkhvadze, a senior member of the Christian-Democratic Movement, said he visited IDP settlements in Gori, and the nearby IDP village of Tserovani. But he stressed that Christian-Democratic leaders could cover as much ground as they would have liked. “It is just impossible to be everywhere,” he explained.
Kakha Kukava, a senior member of the Conservative Party and former candidate for the opposition National Council coalition, said the fact that IDPs feel left out of the election “concerns” the Conservative Party, but there wasn’t much top party leaders could do. “We have a weak party system in [the] Gori region,” Kukava said.
Irakli Alasania, a Tbilisi mayoral candidate and leader of the Alliance for Georgia coalition, says that a lack of resources has kept his team from campaigning strongly in the regions. He also argued other factors were playing a role. “In the regions, there is no self-governance, there is no political culture,” Alasania said.
All three opposition groups indicated that they plan to strengthen their grassroots efforts in the regions after the elections.
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