Although the Georgian electoral legislation does not prohibit, save for exceptions, initiation and implementation of social programs in the pre-election period, such initiatives still contain risks of the use of administrative resources. Such initiatives are mainly targeted at broad masses of the population and initiating them before elections is aimed at increasing the level of voters’ satisfaction. 

There are no separate regulations on the use of the Web space and social networks for campaigning purposes and unlawful campaigning. Together with development of technologies, the nature of electoral violations has also been transformed and, in some cases, they also occur in the Web space, cases in point being campaigning using social networks, including Facebook, and the use  of video transmissions from abroad to involve foreign nationals in election campaigning. 

On June 16, 2016, the United National Movement was planning to present its majoritarian candidates in the city of Rustavi.

The July issue of the Tkibuli local socio-political newspaper, which is published by the Tkibuli Municipality, published a campaigning letter and article by Elguja Gotsiridze, a majoritarian candidate of political association Georgian Dream – Democratic Georgia. Neither the letter nor the article were accompanied by the inscription “free political advertising” or “paid political advertising”. 

According to an article published by the InterPressNews news agency on June 9 this year, on the initiative of Tevdore Kobakhidze, Chairperson of the Legal Issues Commission of the Tbilisi City Council, “teachers of the schools of the Vake District will be given free diagnostic tests.” To study this fact in detail, we applied to the Tbilisi City Council, requesting information about the planned initiative and its budget.           

On July 18, 2016, various media outlets reported that Levan Varshalomidze, a representative of citizen’s political association United National Movement, had met with constituents in the Benze neighborhood of Batumi as part of the election campaign. During the meeting, Levan Varshalomidze made a written agreement with several constituents promising to build a new apartment building.

GYLA has also been observing cases of dismissal from jobs on allegedly political grounds and, if necessary, representing the interests of dismissed persons in court. In the reporting period, we have documented three cases of job dismissals on allegedly political grounds. In particular: 

The reporting period has also seen several cases of interference with the election campaign and violence. GYLA has filed applications regarding these acts in the relevant agencies and, also, called upon political parties and their supporters to refrain from violent acts and to conduct the election campaign quietly and without violence, so that the events will not endanger free, competitive and fair electoral environment.