Georgian Dream candidate advised to withdraw from election

The political council of the Georgian Dream ruling coalition has advised one of its regional candidates to withdraw his candidacy from the 2014 municipal elections.

With two days to go until the elections, the ruling coalition officials advised its Governor candidate in Marneuli district to remove his candidacy in favour of two Azerbaijani opposition candidates.

This could prevent opposition parties’ provoking a potential situation of ethnic controversy and avoid additional escalation of the situation in the district, said Georgia Dream as it explained its reason for the decision after a council meeting yesterday.

"We dismiss the faulty practice established over the years when the government, as a rule, would force fed their own candidates to the Marneuli inhabitants and their candidate always won,” read the Georgian Dream coalition statement.

"Until now, every government have made decisions that derived from narrowed partial interests and their interests were deemed more important than the state’s, which contributed to the fact that political culture of society has been low.”

In a bid to demonstrate that Georgian Dream had the interests of the state at heart, the ruling coalition tried to create a precedent of removing electoral candidate in favour of opposition candidates.

Recently, Tbilisi City Court decided to reinstate opposition United National Movement candidate Akmamed Imamquliyev after the Central Election Commission (CEC) cancelled his registration for failing to adhere to election rules.

The opposition party candidate’s bid to run in the election was plagued with legal hurdles related to two-year residency requirements. The District Election Commission looked into his case and advised the CEC to revoke Imamquliyev’s eligibility to run for the head (Gamgebeli) of Marneuli municipality, Kvemo Kartli region.

Earlier, UNM blamed authorities for unlawfully revoking Imamquliyev’s candidacy and claimed current leaders wanted its candidate to be removed from the race. Imamquliyev appealed the decision to the CEC but on June 7 his name was removed from the election registration form.

UNM then appealed to Tbilisi City Court and won the case.