Political preferences of the presidential candidates
By Messenger Staff
Thursday, October 3
The presidential race is reaching a decisive stage. It is interesting to know what kind of political preferences the candidates have. Most of the challengers make promises about social issues while meeting the voters, in an attempt to attract more voters as the social issues are the most important for the Georgian population. Therefore, it could be mentioned that most of the candidates are of the leftist orientation. Another thing is that according to the new status, the president has almost no direct levers to pull in pursuit of fulfilling the social promises he or she may make.
However, there are attempts to label the candidate’s in such a way. For instance, the presidential candidate of the Georgian Dream coalition, Giorgi Margvelashvili can be identified as right centrist, whereas the candidate of the United National Movement (UNM) Davit Bakradze can be considered as rightist. It is difficult to identify the candidate of the Democratic Movement - United Georgia Nino Burjanadze, whose slogan is the 'restoration of justice'. Perhaps she is close to the left centrist direction? The leader of Labor Party, Shalva Natelashvili, is a leftist, the leader of the Christian-Democratic Movement, Giorgi Targamadze, can be considered as a right centrist.
The most popular division of the political parties in Georgia is distribution according to the foreign policy orientation. Here are two major directions: pro-Western and pro-Russia. In this regard Bakradze is a clearly a Western oriented candidate, whereas Burjanadze could be labeled as pro-Russian oriented although she does not agree with that. Margvelashvili claims to be Western oriented although his coalition is attempting to regulate relations with Russia.
Some other candidates do not accept either Russian or Western orientation claiming that they are pro-Georgian. These are: Natelashvili and the candidate of People’s Party Koba Davitashvili.
It is known that soon after the presidential elections, the Vilnius Summit will be held and a newly elected president should sign the document on the EU association membership and everything will become clear.