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CRS INSIGHT
Elections Strengthen Georgia's Ruling Party
October 18, 2016 (IN10596)
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* -C0.~.Welt
Cory Welt, Analyst in European Affairs (.cwet2 r.locgo, 7-0530)
On October 8, 2016, the country of Georgia held parliamentary elections, which dm.ati and international observers
assessed as democratic, despite isolated violations and violent incidents. The elections tested the resilience of Georgia's
ruling party, the center-left Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia (GDDG), founded by oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili in
2012 to unseat the United National Movement (UNM), formerly led by Mikheil Saakashvili. GDDG won a clear victory
in the first round and is on track to form a new government.
Support for the Georgian Dream
GDDG's victory reflects broad but measured support for the ruling party. GDDG has positioned itself as a pro-European
but socially conservative force and has presided over a period of slow economic growth. GDDG ion 49% of the party-
list vote, through which around half the 150-seat parliament is elected, and its candidates won around one-third of the
remaining single-member races. GDDG candidates Lkad in 46 of the 50 races that will enter a second round on October
30. GDDG is thus expected to secure a ruling majority and could gain a constitutional majority if it wins all 46 of these
races to secure a three-fourths majority. GDDG's only true competitor is the UNM, which received 27% of the party
vote.
Despite GDDG's large victory, popular enthusiasm for the party appears to be constrained. Turnout was relatively low,
at 52% (turnout in the 2012 election was 61%). Frequently cited preelection polls commissioned by the U.S. National
Democatic institute (NDI) and Inteational Republican Insitute pegged GDDG and UNM as close competitors with
no more than 20% support each, accompanied by a large percentage of undecided voters. Many undecided voters may
have chosen to support the ruling party only recently.
The election reflects the reduced influence of the formerly dominant UNM. The party's decline is attributed in part to
the imprisonment or indictment of several senior UNM officials (including Saakashvili) on charges party supporters
consider to be political, as well as to harassment of party activists and defections by UNM parliamentarians. Analysts
have DbsgerLxd that the UNM campaign failed to reach beyond its base and was overshadowed by Saakashvili, a
polarizing figure who refram[ed] the elections as a referendum on his return to Georgia from Ukraine (in 2015,
Saakashvili took Ukrainian citizenship and was appointed governor of the Odessa region).
Support for Western Integration](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.crs/crsmthmanxz0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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