How much did political parties spend on campaigns for the October 2 elections in Georgia?
Political parties in Georgia spent over 11 million GEL between August 2 and September 12. Photo: Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge.
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Political parties in Georgia spent over 11 million GEL between August 2 and September 12, says the interim report on the October 2 local self-government elections published by the State Audit Office of Georgia.
The sum was spent in the following areas:
- 6.7 million GEL - on advertising
- 293,357 GEL - on salaries
- 4.01 million GEL - on other expenses including office rent, utilities, business trips and conference / training expenses
How much did each political party spend?
- Georgian Dream - Democratic Georgia spent 7.60 million GEL
- Lelo for Georgia - 796,369 GEL
- Gakharia - For Georgia - 703,604 GEL
- United National Movement - 521,304 GEL
- Girchi - 454,330 GEL
- European Georgia - Movement for Freedom - 330,962 GEL
- Aleko Elisashvili – Citizens - 213,404 GEL
- Davit Tarkhan-Mouravi, Irma Inashvili - Alliance of the Patriots Alliance of Georgia - 125,947 GEL
- Third Force - 103,431 GEL
- Others - 235,113 GEL
43 parties and 68 independent candidates are running in the October 2 local self-government elections.
US Ambassador to Georgia Kelly Degnan has commented on Georgian ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili’s alleged plan to return to Georgia on October 2, the day of municipal elections in the country, and said that ‘what Georgia needs now is a peaceful, calm election environment and not political instability and violence.’ Degnan said that many statements have been made on the alleged return of Saakashvili and she had no plans to go into details.
The French government has called on Georgian authorities to ensure the holding of the October 2 municipal elections in line with EU standards.
The Council of Europe’s Congress of Local and Regional Authorities will observe the October 2 self-government elections in Georgia on the invitation of the Georgian government in 64 municipalities of the country. The mission involves 18 congress observers from 15 countries and is chaired by David Eray from Switzerland.
Head of the United National Movement (UNM) opposition party Nika Melia, who is running for Tbilisi mayor in the October 2 municipal elections, says that ‘if almost all international observers say that the elections were held in the full line with the EU and US standards, we will accept the results.’
The ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party plans a parallel vote count (Parallel Vote Tabulation) on election day to independently verify election results.