The ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party is expected to receive 36% of the vote while the largest opposition United National Movement (UNM) party is likely to get 27% of the vote in the upcoming municipal elections nationwide, says Edison Research polls commissioned by opposition-minded TV channel Formula.
Political party ratings according to the recent @edisonresearch poll. The Poll was commissioned by Formula TV
— Formula NEWS | English (@FormulaGe) September 27, 2021
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#Tbilisi mayoral candidate ratings according to the recent @edisonresearch poll. The Poll was commissioned by Formula TV
— Formula NEWS | English (@FormulaGe) September 27, 2021
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The mayoral candidate must receive more than 50% of votes in the local self-government elections while the majoritarian candidate must obtain over 40% of votes to gain the victory in the first round.
Edison Research’s survey reports that 12% of GD voters in the 2020 parliamentary elections are now supporters of the For Georgia political party which was established by former Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia soon after his resignation in February.
The survey also says that 4% of the ruling party’s voters in previous elections are now supporting the UNM while the Lelo and the Labour Party are supported by two per cent each.
The polls were conducted between September 12-25 and 1,500 respondents were surveyed. The margin of error of the survey is 3%.
However, the ruling party distrusts the polls commissioned by the opposition-minded TV channels calling them ‘manipulation.’
Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili stated that the polls commissioned by two TV channels Mtavari Arkhi and Formula are ‘falsified.’
This research (Edison Research) is being done by one of Saakashvili's (Georgia’s former president under the UNM government) main election falsificator. I would like to remind the population that Mr Levan Tarkhnishvili was the Chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC) and he has been repeatedly exposed to the worst cases of fraud by our population,” Garibashvili said.
Overall 241 mayoral and 2,845 majoritarian candidates are running for the local elections and over 3.4 million country’s citizens will be able to elect them in various cities of Georgia.