Municipal elections were held in Georgia on October 4. However, the elections did not take place peacefully. Serious protest actions were held. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia has already announced that the organizers of the protest have been detained.
According to the Ministry, among those detained are Murtaz Zodelava and Irakli Nadiradze, members of the "National Movement" Party, Paata Burchuladze, one of the leaders of the "Rustaveli Avenue" movement, Paata Manjgaladze, a representative of the "Strategy Aghmashenebeli" Party, and Colonel Lasha Beridze.
Ali Badirov, a candidate from the "United Georgia” party, who is fighting for the Marneuli municipality, spoke to Modern.az about the situation.
He stated that scheduling the protest actions on election day was intended to overshadow the process and divert the attention of opposition-minded people to the protest:
“Agents placed by “Georgian Dream” in the opposition carried out this process. Many opposition-minded people did not come to the elections. In fact, many pro-government individuals also did not come, but through fraud, “Georgian Dream” and its collaborating “Lelo - Strong Georgia” Party filled out ballots equally in many precincts. We see that “Lelo”, which lost to me in some precincts, gathered 450 votes in several precincts. These results are unrealistic. It is clear that they participated in a carousel with “Georgian Dream” and filled out ballots”.
A. Badirov noted that despite this, they had no opportunity to file a complaint:
“However, I believe we have no way to complain. Because we did not have a commission member. We could have paid more careful attention to the process and kept the situation under control. Unfortunately, we did not have a commission member. “Georgian Dream” and “Lelo” had commission members, which allowed them to carry out this process equally”.
The candidate of the “United Georgia” Party stated that he would withdraw from politics for 100 days:
“But still, the mayor's activities will be under my attention. There is opposition both within and outside the municipality. As for the opposition not in the municipality, I will pay attention to their activities as an ordinary citizen. Even though I will withdraw from politics for one hundred days, I will closely monitor the developments as a citizen to see whether Marneuli will truly be filled with development or regress. After 100 days, I will express my opinion on what kind of mayor the Marneuli mayor is, and what kind of opposition “Lelo” is”.
