European Forum

Incumbent Tbilisi mayor Ugulava re-elected in local elections

On Sunday 30 May local elections were held in Georgia. Georgians casted ballots to elect 64 new municipal councils for four-year terms in elections that are seen as the first test of the strength of President Mikheil Saakashvili's government since the disastrous 2008 August war with Russia. The most crucial test, however, was in the capital of Tbilisi, which, in addition to choosing a city council, also directly elected its mayor for the first time. That race, observers say, will largely set the political landscape for parliamentary elections in 2012 and presidential elections in 2013.

Ugulava for another term
According to vote summaries from all polling stations in Tbilisi, incumbent Tbilisi mayor and a close ally of the president, Georgi Gigi Ugulava, was re-elected with 55.2% of the votes. His main rival, leader of the opposition Alliance for Georgia Irakli Alasania garnered 19.06%. Speaking briefly to reporters after voting in the morning, Ugulava called the elections “historic” and praised his opponents for what he called a hard-fought but “businesslike” campaign. Ugulava has been the mayor of Tbilisi since July 2005.

“Evident progress marked”
The vote was closely watched by hundreds of international observers from the OSCE. On 31 May the OSCE and the Council of Europe's Congress of Local and Regional Authorities released a press statement in which the observers concluded that the elections “marked evident progress towards meeting international standards, but significant shortcomings remain to be addressed”. “Systematic irregularities were observed on election day in some regions, including several cases of ballot box stuffing and procedural violations during the vote count”, the statement concluded.

Speaking to reporters after voting in the afternoon, Saakashvili called the elections "the best since independence" and confidently predicted victory for the United National Movement. "Georgia is back on the European track [..]," he said. 

Opposition leader and Georgia's former ambassador to the UN, Irakli Alasania, told his party activists on 31 May, that the elections were valid and the new target now should be 2012 parliamentary elections. “Despite significant shortcomings, elections were valid; Tbilisi has made its choice,” he told the supporters in his campaign headquarters. “With the parliamentary elections [in 2012], we face the major test ahead of us. I call on our supporters to get united like a fist and get ready for the victory,” he added.

Nine candidates were competing to be Tbilisi's mayor, which is considered one of the most important offices in Georgia because one-third of Georgia's 4.5 million citizens live in the capital. Both Ugulava and Alasania are widely believed to have presidential ambitions. Ugulava, who analysts consider the leading presidential candidate for 2013, has been aided by Saakashvili's strong public support and by a wave of frantic construction and urban renewal projects in Tbilisi, which the opposition considers an unfair political use of his "administrative resources" as mayor.

Ruling party remains the biggest
Saakashvili’s ruling National Movement party is, meanwhile, also leading in the proportional, party-list contest for Tbilisi City Council seats, with half of the votes counted. So far, it has garnered up to 52% of the votes, and is followed by the Alliance for Georgia with 18.8% and the Christian-Democratic Movement (CDM) with 11.5%. National Council, a coalition of Conservative Party, Party of People and former PM Zurab Nogaideli’s Movement for Fair Georgia, has garnered about 9%. 25 seats are contested under the party-list, proportional contest in Tbilisi’s City Council. The remaining 25 seats are contested among majoritarian candidates running in Tbilisi’s single-mandate constituencies.

The National Movement is also likely to retrain the majority in the other 63 municipal councils throughout the country. With more than half of the nationwide votes counted, the ruling party leads with 62.7%.

Updated: 1 june, 13:38

Sources: Civil Georgia; OSCE; RFE/RL