• am
  • ru
  • en
print version
12.02.2008

SOME INFORMATION ASPECTS OF THE ELECTIONS IN GEORGIA

   

Samvel Martirosyan

The used materials are published in the personal blog of the head of Center of extreme journalism Oleg Panfilov (http://oleg-panfilov.livejournal.com).

The past presidential elections of Georgia turned up to be quite interesting from the standpoint of information component. From the one hand the elections themselves were quite nonordinary, as they were special and were held after clashes with the opposition and the introduction of state of emergency. Besides, one should take into consideration that they were held at the period of New Year holidays, when the overall data flow in the world falls down, in connection of which the Georgian elections also appeared in the center of attention of mass media.

Real information wars were waged around the elections in which were involved both inter-Georgian and outward powers, especially Russian ones. It should be marked out three phases of information war: the period of clashes with the opposition before the elections and after.

At the period of disturbances in Tbilisi, at the beginning of September, was introduced state of emergency and the country’s mass media, except the public TV, was prohibited to work. The opposition TV Company “Imedy” was closed and all the equipment was smashed up by the emergency platoon. At that period the only source of information about what was happening in Georgia, were local bloggers, who were operatively broadcasting about the situation in the country. So, the most extensively read blogger became Hrant from Tbilisi (http://athanatoi.livejournal.com/). Besides, the information was presented by the editor of the site of “News of Georgia” in its blog (http://elenaim. livejournal.com/) and an Alerksander from the same editorial (http:// geoinlaz.livejournal.com/). It is interesting that on November 8 the live journal elenaim stopped being uploaded, and the blog geoinlaz was completely removed.

The last days before the elections the information war was conducted on the level of publishing the candidates’ ratings, who were on bad terms with each other. One can judge about it according to the below presented selection based on different ratings presented to the public.

Sahakashvili 41,7%, Gachechiladze 11,1%, Patarkatsishvili 6,5%
Sahakashvili 61,1%, Gachechiladze 5,2%, Patarkatsishvili 2,9%
Sahakashvili 20,4%, Gachechiladze 16,4%, Patarkatsishvili 2,3%
Gachechiladze 22,1%, Sahakashvili,4%, Patarkatsishvili 13,8%
Gachechiladze 22,1%, Sahakashvili 20,3%, Patarkatsishvili 19,1%
Gachechiladze 21,9% , Sahakashvili 21%, Patarkatsishvili 20,3%
Gachechiladze 18,04%, Sahakashvili 16,05%, Patarkatsishvili 6,34%

It is worth mentioning the activity of a European foundation “Dialogue of developing democracy” headed by Ivan Sherstyuk at the eve of elections. At the end of December the Foundation represented the results of the public opinion in Georgia:

Levan Gachechiladze – 22,1%
Michael Sahakashvili – 20,3%
Badri Patarkatsishvili – 19,1%
Shalva Natelashvili – 6,5%
David Gamkrelidze – 4,9%
George Maisashvili – 1,1%
Irina Sarishvili – 0,2%

Ivan Sherstyuk is quite a distinguished figure as he has already showed up at the elections in Kazakhstan and Ukraine. At that, he has constantly appeared as an observer of different organizations. In Kazakhstan, in 2005, he was the representative of the international mission of observers of independent Ukrainian, Belarusian and Polish mass media. In Ukraine, in 2007, he was the coordinator of the European collegium of the Polish and Ukrainian universities (Polish). And in 2006 he was also the international secretary of non-governmental organization “Function of regional initiatives.”

Another intrigue of elections became accusation of a number of candidates for presidency in the attempts of state revolution. After the stories around the former Defense Minister Okruashvili suchlike accusations were brought against Badri Patarkatsishvili. In the press were published the shortened reports of the records of conversations of the head of the electoral headquarter Patarkatsishvili Valeria Gelbakhiani, from what it was evident that that there was a conspiracy directed against forcedly changed constitutional system of Georgia.

After the elections it is more noteworthy the scandal broken around the publication of the correspondent of a German newspaper “Frankfurter Rundschau” Floriana Khassel, who took an interview from the head of OSCE mission of observers Diter Boden. “Frankfurter Rundschau” published a material in which were cited the words of Boden that it was becoming more obvious that in Georgia there were “rude violations, careless and intentional falsifications while counting the votes” and the primary and positive estimation given by the OSCE is not trustworthy any more. Soon after that the mission of OSCE observers in Georgia appeared with an announcement that the words of Boden were distorted. Boden himself announced that Florina Khasel “used his words about the elections in Georgia in the wrong context.” In the interview given to “Эхо Москвы” the press secretary of the OSCE Bureau for Democratic Institutes and Human Rights Urdur Gunnarsdotir explained that as a matter of fact it is a normal practice. The mission of the organization’s observers is going on its work and finding out more and more information. And in case there are more new data, one shouldn’t exclude that the OSCE will publish a new report. Nevertheless, according to Gunnarsdotir, there is no need to expect that the organization will cardinally change its attitude to the voting.

Later on the OSCE/ODIHR representative in Georgia Rasto Kujel announced: “What was said by Mr. Boden was not completely published, there are some assertions lift out of the context, and we will investigate it. As for our estimations of the elections, we don’t change our position, which was expressed the next day after the elections in the preliminary estimations.”

In any case everything mentioned above had an influence on the perception of elections by the western press, about which one can judge by the articles’ titles: “Faded rose” (The Times, Great Britain), “Pyrrhic victory” (Newsweek, USA), “It is time to show more understanding and be less haughty” (The Financial Times, Great Britain).



Return
Another materials of author