Unequal Conditions for Political Parties – Office of an Opposition Political Party is Associated with Problems

Manon Bokuchava, Kvemo Kartli

Rustavi resident can sing for the National Movement – “As soon as I open my eyes, you are sitting on my eye-lashes” (popular Georgian song). The thing is that ruling party opened 10 new offices in Rustavi before elections. Their HQs with the slogan, flags and election number 5 of the political party are functioning in almost every district of the city.

One of the necessary requirements for the fair elections is to create equal conditions for all parties participating in the election marathon. Various facts demonstrate that those principles are breached in the regions (and not only in the regions). Offices of political parties are one of those problematic issues of the fair election environment.

Opposition parties face problems to rent offices almost in every region. When National Movement opened 10 offices in the city, Coalition Georgian Dream’s Gardabani HQ speaks about reasons why Gardabani residents refused them to rent their houses.

Georgian Dream’s members state they have been looking for the “courageous” citizens in the district during several months. “I cannot say that we found ordinary citizen who dared to rent this office to us. Our months-long search finished without results and finally our member Telman Gasanov gave us his house to use as an office. Before that we talked about this issue very often; we visited a lot of families; there were many cases when citizens agreed to rent house to us but next day they refused. Later we learned that several minutes after our visit, police officers visited them,” Bakur Zurian, deputy head of the Coalition’s Gardabani office said.

Coalition had problems in renting an office in Tetritskaro too. When coalition members arrived at the office to officially open it, they found underage children at the door. Coalition learned that a large family was sheltered in that house before official opening.

Coalition’s Rustavi office also had some problems. After the owner rented his house to the Coalition, he was summoned to police.

“After we signed agreement with the Georgian Dream, I was summoned to Rustavi police. They interrogated me and compelled to write that I request to annul rent agreement with the Georgian Dream. Afterwards, they visited me at home, questioned my mother about working places of our family members and other data. They said they are visiting everybody’s house. But I inquired in my neighborhood and they had not visited any family in our district,” Mamuka Matkava, who has already joined the Coalition, said. Coalition members say they try to find space for the second office on the left embankment of Rustavi too.