Georgian Dream reaps benefits of election donations

Georgian Dream and Alliance of Patriots received the largest cash donations during the 2014 municipal elections.

Latest information from the Political Parties Financial Monitoring Service revealed from June 13 to 30, political party Georgian Dream – Democratic Georgia received 243,022 GEL in donations.

In total, 335,071 GEL was donated to political parties during the municipal election period.

Opposition party Alliance of Patriots gained the second highest amount in donations – 51,008 GEL – while United National Movement (UNM) received the third highest amount of 24,020 GEL.

The biggest donor to Alliance of Patriots was Giorgi Lomia - one of the distributors of the so-called prison tapes that depicted torture scenes in Georgian prisons. Lomia donated 17,668 GEL to the political party.

The most generous donor to UNM ahead of the June elections was former Minister of Economy Kakha Bendukidze, who transferred 27,775 GEL to his favourite party.

Interestingly, Bendukidze made five transactions of 5,555 GEL, in reference to the UNM election number being five. He made his donations on May 15 and June 13, 14, 16 and 20.

Donations to other parties are as follows: Christian-Democratic Movement – 8,731 GEL, The Way of Georgia – 6,900 GEL, People’s Party – 1000 GEL, Democratic Movement – Unified Georgia – 300 GEL and Green Party – 90 GEL.