Violent incident in Akhalubani and mutual accusations during the pre-election campaigns

Lado Bitchashvili, Shida Kartli

While until now, the representatives of the opposition parties were claiming to have problems with entering the villages near the occupation line and holding pre-election meetings there, today they faced a problem of ruining the meetings like for instance on October 16, when some local residents broke up the meeting of Levan Tarkhnishvili, the majoritarian candidate of the European Georgia in Gori and Kaspi municipalities, with local population in village Akhalubani.  

According to Tarkhnishvili, the instigators were supporters of the ruling party. “Up to six persons obstructed and instigated us ruining the campaign. This is not the first case of the obstruction of the pre-election campaign of the opposition parties by the ruling party, for the same happened a week ago, when a candidate of the United Opposition was hindered to meet the people.  Such acts represent deliberately manufactured incidents. "I want to call on the government to investigate the fact and stop the attacks on the opposition," said Levan Tarkhnishvili, a majoritarian candidate for the European Georgia.

The confrontation in village Akhalubani took place when Eter Jalaghania, chairwoman of the local branch of the European Georgia, tried to use her mobile for taking a photo of the fact that a poster of Giorgi Khojevanishvili, a  candidate from Georgian Dream, was placed over a poster of Levan Tarkhnishvili.  

Supporters of the ruling party, who, according to Jalaghania, were drunk, thought that the posters of the Georgian Dream candidate were going to be damaged and thus the conflict began, initially in verbal terms and then evolved to physical assaults.  During the incident, glasses of Eter Jalaghania were broken, and bodily injuries were inflicted to other representatives of the European Georgia. 

„We had a door-to-door campaign when I noticed that a poster on the wall depicting Khojevanishvili was covering a poster of our  candidate. I picked up a corner of the poster to capture the fact and after that the situation became tense. Some persons instantly came over, grabbed me by the throat, broke my glasses,” said Eter Jalaghania.

In few hours the local branch of the ruling party scheduled a briefing in response to the allegations from the opposition.  Giorgi Khojevanishvili, the candidate of the Georgian Dream, was supposed to make a statement, but the plan was changed and Mikheil Goginashvili, a representative of the local organization of the ruling party, spoke instead of the candidate. 

According to Mikheil Goginashvili, the representatives of the European Georgia organized the provocation themselves. According to him, one of the members of the European Georgia threatened the locals with a firearm. However, Goginashvili could not name the person who had the weapon, nor could he specify who the attacker was.

“It is unfortunately a fact that we have a destructive, violent and criminal opposition in Georgia. The incident, which took place in the center of village Akhalubani in Gori Municipality, was instigated by the representatives of the European Georgia. Some of the representatives of this violent political force began to tear down posters of the Georgian Dream and tried to put up their own posters causing a protest on the part of the local population, after which a representative of European Georgia threatened the locals with a firearm. “There are many eyewitnesses to this fact and we call on the relevant agencies to timely respond to this in legal terms," said Mikheil Goginashvili, a representative of Georgian Dream.

The statement by Goginashvili was followed by another response comment from the European Georgia. According to Eter Jalaghania, the statement of the representative of Georgian Dream was not only based on lies, but it also aimed at encouraging violence.

“It was a complete nonsense. “The only weapon I saw there were the stones held by their supporters," Jalaghania said.

The police launched an investigation into the incident of Akhalubani located near the occupation line under the article of violent actions.  Some of the representatives of European Georgia have already been interviewed about the conflict. The opposition party counts on fair investigation and demands that the assaults against them be seized. 

The article was written within the project Monitoring 2020 Parliamentary Elections in Georgia supported by Open Society Georgia Foundation. The views expressed in the articles may not necessarily represent the views of the donor.