Political Revenge

Representatives of the bureau of MP Nikoloz Kvezereli, were exiled from their working room in the administrative building of the local government; the room was assigned to them according to the law. The reason was his support for the parliamentary fraction “Our Georgia” with the leaders of presidential candidate Badri Patarkatsishvili. The MP from Gurjaani is the member of the fraction. The head of the MP’s bureau said that the local government was particularly annoyed by the fact that civil society actively cooperates with them.

“The incident happened at about 2:00 PM on November 29. Gurjaani district Deputy Governor, Valeri VArdosanidze, other officials and workers hired by the distinct Administrative Board broke into our working room and forced us out. Before that they warned us several times to empty the room. Although the reason was repair-works, in fact our room does not need any reparation,” said the representatives of the MP’s bureau.

Everything started since the MP Nikoloz Kvezereli left parliamentary fraction “Majorities” and joined “Our Georgia”, the newly established fraction of MP Valeri Gelbakhiani. After the election date was officially announced, representatives of the fraction “Our Georgia” officially stated that they support presidential candidate Badri Patarkatsishvili.

“After that statement, the Administrative Board started demanding us to leave the office more actively. Before that they did not like the fact that we actively cooperated with media sources, NGOs and representatives of the political parties. The governor and former chairman of the Municipality used to blame us that we had an opposition HQ in our office and worked against the local authority. They did not like those people who often visited us because they criticized them. For some time they demanded us not to let them in and refuse those people to meet. However, we did not accept their suggestion and explained to them that their demand was unfair and unacceptable for us. The local officials were particularly irritated by the fact when several days ago “Transparency International-Georgia” held meeting between independent journalists and local NGOs. The guests discussed unreasonable expenses of the administrative resources before the elections. The high ranking officials got too much annoyed by similar statements and blamed we were arranging coup against them in their own building. Afterwards, when I was in Tbilisi they broke into our office where only our female staff remained and forced them out,” said the head of the bureau Akaki Begashvili.

Reportedly, Murtaz Shaluashvili, the head of the Mikheil Saakashvili’s election bureau has seized the key to the office from the employees of the bureau. He still keeps the key. Shaluashvili refused to comment on the situation. It is noteworthy that the local NGOs claim that Shaluashvili, who is also a bailiff of the Georgian parliament, has been suspected for several crimes before and during pre-election campaign. For example, short time ago a little child was crashed by his car as a result of what the child was placed in hospital with serious injuries. He has given orders to damage the houses of oppositionists; Shaluashvili used his physical power to force out journalists from the municipality meeting; etc.

Ramaz Kerechashvili, the Gurjaani Municipality Governor, defined that the MP’s bureau was exiled from the administrative building because of repair-works. “I do not care what their staff claims. There is repair-works on in the receptionist’s where their working room is situated; thus they had to leave it. It is a lie as if they were persecuted on political grounds,” said the governor.

It must be pointed out that slight reconstruction is really going on at the administrative building. However, they have not demanded anybody else to leave the building.

Gela Mtivlishvili, Kakheti