The News in Brief
Thursday, August 11
Paata Burchuladze’s party spends most of its money on election advertising
The most amount of money on advertising has been spent by Paata Burchuladze’s movement, the State for People, among all currently active political parties.
As InterpressNews was told by the Financial Monitoring Service of Political Parties, according to six weeks of data covering the period from June 8 to 19 July, the State for People spent 512,009 GEL on advertising.
The movement is followed by the Georgian Dream, which spent 345,032 GEL. The third on the list is Giorgi Vashadze’s New Georgia with 184,550 GEL and fourth is Patriotic Alliance with 183,382 GEL.
The United National Movement spent 3,082 GEL on ads. The spending of other parties on commercials is as follows: Girchi - 9 275 GEL, United Democratic Movement - 2 000 GEL, Left-wing Alliance - 501 GEL, Labour Party - 320 GEL, Republican Party - 250 GEL. No money had been spent on advertising during the mentioned period by Free Democrats, Conservatives, National Forum and New Rights Party.
The total amount of money spent by political parties on their election campaigns in the 6-week period is 4,66, 091 GEL. (IPN)
CEC: Number of Voters 3.45 Million
The number of Georgia’s voters stands at 3,452,093 according to updated figures released by the Central Election Commission (CEC) on August 6.
The CEC is responsible for compiling voter lists based on data provided four times in a year by the relevant authorities, primarily the Justice Ministry’s Public Service Development Agency.
The election commission will have to release updated figures on number of voters no later than October 3, five days before the parliamentary elections.
Data released by the CEC also includes number of voters in each of the 73 election districts.
Election districts were redrawn earlier this year to narrow huge discrepancy in size of single-mandate constituencies by merging some small districts and dividing larger ones.
As a result boundaries of single-mandate constituencies no longer coincide with those of administrative borders of municipalities.
Number of voters in each election district varies from 41,364 in the smallest one (Tbilisi’s single-mandate constituency covering mostly the capital city’s Vake district) to 53,480 in the largest one (Gurjaani single-mandate constituency in eastern Georgian region of Kakheti).
Before the redistricting, number of voters was ranging from over 150,000 in the largest one to less than 6,000 in the smallest one.
Lawmakers from the opposition UNM challenged the electoral redistricting in the Constitutional Court, claiming that the boundaries were redrawn to the detriment of opposition parties. The Constitutional Court rejected the complaint in a ruling on July 20. (Civil.ge)
National Forum office robbed in Tbilisi
The office of the National Forum, a right wing political party which recently split from the Georgian Dream coalition, was broken into overnight in Tbilisi.
Members of the party say that the investigation is in progress and it is hard to say whether political motives are behind the robbery. The NF stated that computers had been taken from the office.
“It could be an ordinary crime and may have nothing in common with politics,” Ani Mirotadze, a member of NF faction at the parliament said to Interpressnews. Law enforcers worked on-site during the night.
Channel 1 reports that the owner of the building witnessed the robbery. The owner noticed the robber when he was escaping but no further details have been released to the public at this time. (DF WATCH)
President launches campaign for encouraging voters to go to polls
President Giorgi Margvelashvili has launched a campaign to encourage voters to go to the polls. As he told Maestro TV, the campaign will not support any political party, but will be directed to ensure that voters go to the polling stations.
"For me, one of the important political experiences is democratic elections. One of the main indicators of democracy is turnout of voters. I am launching a campaign focused on making voters active. It will not support a single political party. It will be a campaign made up of young people and we will try to encourage voters to go to polls. Apparently, the most passive voters are those aged 18-35 and we will focus on this segment,” Margvelashvili said.
As for the election environment, the President said that the 2016 elections can in no way be compared with the 2012 elections. "Now is qualitatively better election environment. I am concerned about the Kortskheli incident, but in 2012 we had similar incidents every day. And the media today is much freer," said the President. (IPN)
The most amount of money on advertising has been spent by Paata Burchuladze’s movement, the State for People, among all currently active political parties.
As InterpressNews was told by the Financial Monitoring Service of Political Parties, according to six weeks of data covering the period from June 8 to 19 July, the State for People spent 512,009 GEL on advertising.
The movement is followed by the Georgian Dream, which spent 345,032 GEL. The third on the list is Giorgi Vashadze’s New Georgia with 184,550 GEL and fourth is Patriotic Alliance with 183,382 GEL.
The United National Movement spent 3,082 GEL on ads. The spending of other parties on commercials is as follows: Girchi - 9 275 GEL, United Democratic Movement - 2 000 GEL, Left-wing Alliance - 501 GEL, Labour Party - 320 GEL, Republican Party - 250 GEL. No money had been spent on advertising during the mentioned period by Free Democrats, Conservatives, National Forum and New Rights Party.
The total amount of money spent by political parties on their election campaigns in the 6-week period is 4,66, 091 GEL. (IPN)
CEC: Number of Voters 3.45 Million
The number of Georgia’s voters stands at 3,452,093 according to updated figures released by the Central Election Commission (CEC) on August 6.
The CEC is responsible for compiling voter lists based on data provided four times in a year by the relevant authorities, primarily the Justice Ministry’s Public Service Development Agency.
The election commission will have to release updated figures on number of voters no later than October 3, five days before the parliamentary elections.
Data released by the CEC also includes number of voters in each of the 73 election districts.
Election districts were redrawn earlier this year to narrow huge discrepancy in size of single-mandate constituencies by merging some small districts and dividing larger ones.
As a result boundaries of single-mandate constituencies no longer coincide with those of administrative borders of municipalities.
Number of voters in each election district varies from 41,364 in the smallest one (Tbilisi’s single-mandate constituency covering mostly the capital city’s Vake district) to 53,480 in the largest one (Gurjaani single-mandate constituency in eastern Georgian region of Kakheti).
Before the redistricting, number of voters was ranging from over 150,000 in the largest one to less than 6,000 in the smallest one.
Lawmakers from the opposition UNM challenged the electoral redistricting in the Constitutional Court, claiming that the boundaries were redrawn to the detriment of opposition parties. The Constitutional Court rejected the complaint in a ruling on July 20. (Civil.ge)
National Forum office robbed in Tbilisi
The office of the National Forum, a right wing political party which recently split from the Georgian Dream coalition, was broken into overnight in Tbilisi.
Members of the party say that the investigation is in progress and it is hard to say whether political motives are behind the robbery. The NF stated that computers had been taken from the office.
“It could be an ordinary crime and may have nothing in common with politics,” Ani Mirotadze, a member of NF faction at the parliament said to Interpressnews. Law enforcers worked on-site during the night.
Channel 1 reports that the owner of the building witnessed the robbery. The owner noticed the robber when he was escaping but no further details have been released to the public at this time. (DF WATCH)
President launches campaign for encouraging voters to go to polls
President Giorgi Margvelashvili has launched a campaign to encourage voters to go to the polls. As he told Maestro TV, the campaign will not support any political party, but will be directed to ensure that voters go to the polling stations.
"For me, one of the important political experiences is democratic elections. One of the main indicators of democracy is turnout of voters. I am launching a campaign focused on making voters active. It will not support a single political party. It will be a campaign made up of young people and we will try to encourage voters to go to polls. Apparently, the most passive voters are those aged 18-35 and we will focus on this segment,” Margvelashvili said.
As for the election environment, the President said that the 2016 elections can in no way be compared with the 2012 elections. "Now is qualitatively better election environment. I am concerned about the Kortskheli incident, but in 2012 we had similar incidents every day. And the media today is much freer," said the President. (IPN)