Rustavi 2 accused of faking poll results to favour opposition

Tbilisi-based private television company, Rustavi 2, has been accused of faking the results of its latest pre-election poll that favour an opposition political party.

The Rustavi 2 pre-election poll was carried out nationwide by German market research company GfK from September 12-25.

Two days ago, on October 1, Rustavi 2 released results of its latest public opinion poll, where opposition United National Movement (UNM) party had 26 percent of votes and current ruling Georgian Dream – Democratic Georgia (GDDG) party had 25.4 percent.

This afternoon local journalist Shalva Ramishvili and Beso Kaladze, a former member of Free Zone political club with known affiliations to UNM, hosted a special press briefing and alleged Rustavi 2 had faked the results.

Two different results of the same poll 

Kaladze said his sources within UNM had provided him with two different results of the same poll –the real results and the other faked results, which Rustavi 2 planned to broadcast.

Kaladze said he was given this information on September 28 - four days before Rustavi 2 released the poll results. Kaladze stressed UNM also knew Rustavi 2 would release fake poll results.

After Kaladze received the two election poll results, Ramishvili advised him to take the papers to a notary, get them stamped and keep the documents sealed until Rustavi 2 released the numbers.

This afternoon Ramishvili and Kaladze went to the same notary and opened the documents in front of journalists. One paper showed UNM had 26 percent – as broadcast by Rustavi 2 – while the other paper, believed to be the real results, showed UNM with 12.5 percent support.

GDDG had 25.4 percent votes in both papers.

Holding two sheets of paper side by side, Ramishvili said: "There is legitimate doubt that these are the real results and those ones are the faked results by Rustavi 2.”

Kaladze quit Free Zone and UNM on September 13 after he and nine other members of the same organisation claimed Georgia’s ex-president and UNM leader Mikheil Saakashvili planned to incite violence in Georgia after the October 8 Parliamentary Elections, and they didn’t want "to be part of this”.

At that time Kaladze said after the elections UNM would claim the elections were falsified, would force people to go to the streets and protest, causing unrest in the country.

Georgian Dream accuses Rustavi 2  of creating fake comments

Meanwhile this afternoon GDDG Executive Secretary Irakli Kobakhidze held a special press conference where he, too, said Rustavi 2 had faked its party rankings.

He said Rustavi 2 created fake comments by former Prime Minister and GDDG founder Bidzina Ivanishvili, where Ivanishvili implied UNM would receive 30 percent votes in Saturday’s election.

Kobakhidze stressed this quote by Ivanishvili was edited unfairly by Rustavi 2 and implied something when in fact Ivanishvili said nothing of the sort. Specifically, Ivanishvili’s words "30 percent” were taken from another sentence and put together in a new context implying UNM would gain 30 percent of votes.

"In reality, UNM’s rating is much lower than 30 percent,” Kobakhidze said.

"We are used to lies and falsehood from Rustavi 2 and [its director general Nika] Gvaramia so we wouldn’t have paid any attention to this at all, but all of this was planned to be part of the revolutionary scenario of UNM leaders.”

Rustavi 2 has not replied to the allegations. It is believed the TV channel will make a statement later today.