The Elections in Georgia and the Ethnic Minorities
The ruling Georgian Dream party, which secured the majority of votes in the Georgian parliamentary elections held on October 26, also emerged victorious in Marneuli, Akhalkalaki, and Ninotsminda—regions predominantly populated by national minorities.
In Marneuli, located in the Kvemo Kartli region and predominantly populated by ethnic Azerbaijanis, Georgian Dream secured 34,328 votes, accounting for 79.61% of the total. In Akhalkalaki and Ninotsminda, where ethnic Armenians form the majority, the ruling party received 18,186 votes (87.78%) and 10,597 votes (88.19%), respectively.
After the Central Election Commission announced the election results, a number of accusations were made against ethnic minorities. Some NGO-s issued a statement asking to refrain from defamation attempts and the spread of hate speech.
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Arnold Stepanyan, an ethnic Armenian and chairman of the Movement Multinational Georgia, believes that most of the criticism was an attempt at manipulation. He argues that this was primarily aimed at explaining the opposition’s defeat, justifying themselves, and blaming national minorities for GD's result. According to Stepanyan, a second form of manipulation involves presenting the results as percentages rather than absolute numbers. He is confident that those making such comments understand that these votes were not the decisive factor in winning the elections.
"That is, each vote in Marneuli, Akhalkalaki is equal to one vote in Tbilisi, one vote in Kutaisi, that is, it is not important what percentage of a given region a party received, but what is important is how many votes it received, and the number of votes, I can say that in principle it is even less than the votes received by the "Georgian Dream" in some separate regions of Tbilisi," Arnold Stepanyan emphasized.
Georgian Dream secured approximately 54% of the vote across Georgia, amounting to 1,120,053 votes. The ruling party is often described as pro-Russian by its opponents. According to the Central Election Commission (CEC), four main opposition blocs entered parliament, collectively receiving more than 37% of the vote.
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Marneuli
However, the opposition, citing numerous violations during the voting, refused to accept the election results. Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili also rejected the outcome and called on citizens to join mass protests.
Akhalkalaki
According to the most recent 2014 census, the largest ethnic minorities are Azerbaijanis 233,000 (6.3%) and Armenians 168,100 (4.5 %). Javakheti is located in southern Georgia, near the Armenian border. Economically, the region is heavily dependent on Russia. Marneuli, a city in the Kvemo Kartli region of southeastern Georgia, serves as the administrative center of Marneuli Municipality and borders both Azerbaijan and Armenia.
​​Levani Talakhadze, project coordinator and researcher at the Social Justice Centre, claims that the "xenophobic backlash" in the days following the election was not as much about xenophobia but more about confusion.
“All of us were very confused by the results, and people were trying to find, to explain what happened, tried someone or something to blame the election results on. Having said that, yes, parts of Georgian society are xenophobic still, and fear and armenophobia and other types of negative phobias are very much present in Georgian society. But not to take blame from them, it is important to mention that the reason why it happens is that there is a lack of social integration,” he said.
Levani Talakhadze pays attention also to the oppositional lack of work with the ethnic minorities. “The reality is that if no opposition party goes there and people can not read in Georgian, a big part of the population can't read and listen to Georgian news. Of course, the only source of information left to them is "Georgian Dream", which has offices there, which has coordinators and agitators there. ​And of course, the use of administrative resources such as teachers, policemen, etcetera, also helps to spread the propaganda and campaign material of "Georgian Dream," he added.
Georgia’s elections were marred by an uneven playing field, pressure and tension, but voters were offered a wide choice, according to the international observers’ report. “The quality of the elections reflected the pre-electoral period. Given the cases of vote-buying, widespread climate of pressure and party-organised intimidation before and during the elections, especially in rural areas…” said the head of the PACE delegation.
The main scandal of the recent elections took place in Marneuli: at one of the polling stations, the moment of ballot stuffing involving the deputy head of the local city council, representing the Georgian Dream, was captured on video. He was arrested, and the results of the voting at the station were annulled. The official accused of falsifications denies guilt.
Tozu Gulmamedli, an activist and a representative of the Azerbaijani community claims that the leading party instilled fear in people like in every election.
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“Georgian Dream” received a considerable number of votes from the Armenian and Azerbaijani communities living in Georgia. However, this doesn’t mean they had genuine support. In fact, it can be argued that GD had the lowest level of actual supporters in these communities. They control all state resources, including social assistance, pensions, property registration services, land registration services, and municipal services. If you don’t speak the language, don’t know your rights, or don’t know when your assistance might stop, who can you turn to? You are forced to vote for them,” she said.
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"Georgian Dream", which actively emphasized the topic of war during the pre-election period and framed the upcoming elections as an existential choice between war and peace, has already held its first session of the National Assembly. The party dismissed criticism from the opposition and protesters in Tbilisi over alleged election violations, fraud, and an atmosphere of fear. Meanwhile, according to the survey of CRRC published a year ago, since August 2022, the share of ethnic minorities who believe that at least one political party in Georgia somewhat represents their interests dropped from 40% to 22%. Additionally, 27% of respondents stated they had no opinion on the matter.
