Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08TBILISI183
2008-02-05 09:26:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Tbilisi
Cable title:  

DAS BRYZA MEETS ELECTION TASK FORCE MEMBERS

Tags:  PGOV PHUM PREL KDEM GG 
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PP RUEHFL RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHROV RUEHSR
DE RUEHSI #0183/01 0360926
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 050926Z FEB 08
FM AMEMBASSY TBILISI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8797
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TBILISI 000183 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/CARC

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/22/2017
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL KDEM GG
SUBJECT: DAS BRYZA MEETS ELECTION TASK FORCE MEMBERS


Classified By: Ambassador John F. Tefft for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TBILISI 000183

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/CARC

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/22/2017
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL KDEM GG
SUBJECT: DAS BRYZA MEETS ELECTION TASK FORCE MEMBERS


Classified By: Ambassador John F. Tefft for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) Summary: On January 18, EUR DAS Matt Bryza and
Ambassador met with Elections Task Force Members MP Nino
Nakashidze, and D/MOIA Eka Zguladze, as well as with key
Saakashvili insider MP Giga Bokeria and UNM Spokesman David
Bakradze on leave from his position as Minister of Conflict
Resolution to discuss the problems of the Presidential
election, expectations for the Parliamentary elections, and
UNM plans for the next term. The group attributed election
day tabulation problems to honest mistakes and were convinced
that Saakashvili won fairly in the first round. Bokeria and
Zguladze discounted the opposition's claims of widespread
intimidation pointing out the sheer number of opposition
public meetings wouldn't have been possible if that were the
case. They attributed large turnouts in the minority regions
to historical voting patterns and family voting practices.
As a group they were dissatisfied with ODIHR's report, citing
that it did not account for GoG responses and therefore was
unbalanced. They also complained that ODIHR's report was
leaked prematurely to all Georgian media outlets by a local
staff member at the European Commission in Tbilisi. With
regard to Parliamentary elections, UNM expects to still
retain a majority after elections, even if the current
majoritarian system is changed. Bokeria anticipated that the
Georgian economy will slow as the government in the second
term will focus more on social problems and less on
large-scale unpopular reforms. They worried about the ability
of Parliament to continue reforms if the UNM loses its
sizeable majority. End Summary.

Elections Aftermath
--------------


2. (C) Members of the Government Elections Task Force
pointed out that the majority of the post election tabulation
snafus were simple mistakes and the several day delay between
closing the polls and announcing the official results was no
different than the practice in many countries in the West.
When asked about the cursory dismissal by the courts of 230

complaints brought by NGOs about election day infractions,
Bokeria said that most of the complaints were of a technical
nature and would not have impacted the result of the
election. Bakradze said that a call for a second round is
based on a political consensus of what the opposition may
want, but is not based on law. Saakashvili had cleared a
majority and the law stipulates that a second round is thus
not required. Other members questioned the competence of
NGOs monitoring the election, alleging that NGOs are
politically biased and court cases should focus on
substantive rather than procedural issues. All maintained
that even if Saakashvili had not won in the first round, he
would have won in a second round. They saw the election as a
plebiscite on Saakashvili. Voters chose the opposition in
the first round because they were against Saakashvili, and
not because they supported opposition candidates. If a
second round had occurred, they would have "come to their
senses" and re-elected Saakashvili.

Allegations of Intimidation Unfounded
--------------


3. (C) Zguladze discounted the notion that on election day
voters were intimidated by police. She said that there was
only one allegation of police intimidation from an NGO in the
Tsalka region, and in this instance the NGO representative

SIPDIS
was uncooperative in providing information. There were four
or five instances of police who were called to a polling
station to restore order, but once order was restored, they
quickly departed. (Note: The electoral code forbids police
from being inside the polling station where the ballot box is
located, unless called by the CEC chairman to restore order.
Once order is restored, the police should immediately leave.)
Zguladze pointed out that two people were arrested on
election day for stuffing ballots, and this in itself was a
sign of maturity of the police, who previously may have
beaten the offenders rather than arresting them. There was
one other instance of a clash between supporters, but the
offenders were arrested and processed under administrative
provisions of the law.


4. (C) All dismissed widespread intimidation and pointed to
public statements by MOIA Merabishvili against such actions.
Bokeria maintained that if an environment of intimidation had
existed in the pre-election period, the opposition could not
have organized so many protests within Tbilisi and the
regions. If the opposition's claims of intimidation are
true, why have they not presented witnesses so that the
offenders could be prosecuted? Bokeria added that the
opposition has contributed to the drama of intimidation by
using such slogans as "To the grave with Saakashvili" and

TBILISI 00000183 002 OF 003


raising fear by promoting tensions by spreading propaganda
about disappearing ink, taking photos of ballots, and waving
around suspect protocols in front of the media, but then only
presenting 18 of them to the CEC for validation. Bokeria
maintained the opposition used the restraint of the UNM to
paint a picture of intimidation, using this allegation to
seek even more concessions from the government.

Turnout and NATO in the Minority Regions
--------------


5. (C) Members of the Task Force discounted many of the
opposition's complaints about large scale falsification of
results and questions on high turn out in the minority
regions. They attributed the results to historically large
turnout tendencies, strong history of family voting and lack
of competition in the regions. Bokeria anticipated that
there would be more competition during the Parliamentary
elections there, but the incidents of family group voting
would not change. He maintained that Saakashvili was the
only candidate many of the minority voters knew, as few if
any opposition candidates ventured to the regions. Bokeria
did say if there were complaints that bureaucrats were
pressuring voters to turn out in large numbers or were
falsifying protocols, that this would be promptly
investigated.


6. (C) With regard to the NATO plebiscite, Bokeria said
that those counting precinct ballots noticed on election day
that Armenians in Samtskhe-Javakheti voted for Saakashvili,
but against NATO. He attributed this to a lack of knowledge
about NATO despite an intensive public awareness campaign to
promote NATO entry amongst voters. He dismissed Conservative
Party Kakha Kukava's comment that the NATO referendum was not
a success, as 77% per cent was an exceptionally high
percentage of support for any country. Bokeria acknowledged
that Georgia would require extra effort to convince Europeans
that they should belong to NATO after November 7 events.

Sore Points with OSCE and Ambassador Boden
--------------


7. (C) All were unhappy with the performance of Ambassador
Boden and his ODIHR team. Bokeria said that OSCE made
factual errors in its report. Georgian authorities had
raised these issues with Ambassador Dieter Boden, but these
errors were not corrected in the final version of the report.
Nakashidze said the problems with the report were often
translation errors, vague language, or if a problem was
indicated, the report did not include the scale of the
problem. They were all stung by the quote of Boden carried
in the German press which reportedly accidentally took one
instance of fraud and made it appear widespread. This, they
lamented, has been widely repeated in the Russian press.
According to Bokeria, a Georgian who works for the European
Commission leaked ODIHR's final report to all Georgian media
outlets before it was made available to the public, just two
days before Saakashvili's inauguration. Nakashidze and
Zguladze said that Boden was approachable, but was reluctant
to give them concrete examples of problems. Bokeria
complained that it took him a week to reach the report's
political analyst, but then the answer to most of his
questions was, "We have our own methodology."

Parliamentary Results
--------------


8. (C) The two MPs anticipated that the turn out for the
Parliamentary elections would be less. Bokeria noted a
discriminatory undertone to the anti-Saakashvili vote in
Tbilisi, saying that the Tbilisi intelligentsia saw the
election as a chance to "get the villagers out of Tbilisi"
referencing himself and others whose families are not from
Tbilisi originally, but who are in Saakashvili's inner
circle. With regard to changing the Parliamentary
representation from the winner-take-all mandate to some other
form, Bokeria said that UNM stands a good chance of remaining
in the majority regardless of the configuration. While he
didn't discount that more opposition members in Parliament
would be a good thing, he said that 50/50 representation from
UNM and opposition parties would result in a deadlock where
nothing gets done. All worried that the upcoming
Parliamentary elections, if they bring in opposition in
substantial numbers, could stall or stop current GoG reform
efforts. They wondered how this could impact Western and
especially European, perceptions of Georgia, especially with
regard to its NATO aspirations.

What's next?
--------------


TBILISI 00000183 003 OF 003



9. (C) Bokeria said that this election had shown them that
radical reforms are unpopular, and one of UNM's mistakes was
not to react to rising inflation right away. UNM's inaction,
he believed, was translated to the populace as indifference.
Well publicized property seizures during the past year was a
serious misstep too, where the government failed to inform
the public of its policy. The UNM plans a small scale
deregulation of customs but no other major economic reforms
for the short run. He anticipates that there will be an
economic slow down as a result. Bokeria said the UNM had
refrained from making any kind of negative statements during
the campaign period, and particularly, did not comment on the
video tapes of Patarkatsishvili. He said in any other
country, a candidate that had been caught planning a coup,
would have been taken off the ballot. He went on to say
getting Patarkatsishvili out of politics and the media would
be a difficult battle. Bokeria questioned News Corporation's
motives in Imedi, saying that News Corporation has not
invested any money in Georgia. Bokeria said he would meet
Martin Pompadour, Executive Vice-President of News Corp,
should he be willing to travel to Georgia.


10. (C) Turning to foreign policy, Bokeria said that he
detected a slight hardening in Moscow's position on the
recognition of Kosovo, and thus Russia's possible recognition
of Abkhazia. All agreed that it was good that Russia had not
been a factor in the elections.


11. (C) Bokeria said that the opposition is challenging
Saakashvili's legitimacy as president, not because they
believe he did not win in the first round, but as leverage to
gain additional concessions in the run-up to the
Parliamentary elections. DAS Bryza congratulated the group
on their efforts to reach out to the opposition, lauding them
for reaching an accommodation with the opposition on the
composition of the Public Broadcasting Station. Nakashidze,
Zguladze, and Bokeria cautioned that the more the UNM gives
in, the harder the opposition pushes for more concessions.
The opposition alleges if a television station is not like
Imedi was, then it is not free. Bokeria said particularly
worrisome are the opposition claims that somehow respected
NGO leaders Alex Rondeli and Gia Nodia are now "traitors" for
their opinions, although their viewpoints are quite neutral.


12. (C) Bokeria said UNM would like a reputable
international company to conduct exit polls during the
Parliamentary elections, citing specifically Gallup.


13. (U) DAS Bryza has approved this cable.














TEFFT