A British man who moved to Georgia five years ago not only actively got involved in Georgian political life this election season but has also demonstrated a great deal of political responsibility to local politicians.
Originally from London and holding a Georgian passport, Joseph Alexander Smith has become the first ‘foreigner’ to participate in Georgian municipal elections; he ran in Saturday’s municipal elections for a seat in the Tbilisi City Assembly.
Although Smith, 32, did not win the race, he had the whole city impressed by what he did the next day of the elections. He cleaned the walls of the city from his election posters – a rare sight to see in the immediate days after elections in the country.
Joseph Alexander Smith takes down his election posters a day after the elections. Photo source: On.ge
"The elections are over and taking our election posters off is our political and civic responsibility”, Smith said in a video address he posted on Facebook.
He urged other candidates to take their posters off the walls as well to make sure the city looks the same as it did before the elections.
Apparently, Smith’s move turned out to be motivational to other political players as well; the next day the ruling Georgian Dream party’s press office also announced they would clean the city from their election posters.
According to the preliminary election results, Smith took third place, gaining 14.04 percent of votes in his majoritarian district.
He said this was "quite an achievement” for him and his team, considering the fact that a couple of months ago almost no one in the district knew about them and also they had very limited financial resources.