Georgia Billionaire Scores Shock Vote Upset Over Saakashvili - Businessweek [getdailynow.blogspot.com]
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Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili’s opposition coalition unexpectedly gathered the most votes in a parliamentary election yesterday, dealing President Mikheil Saakashvili a blow.
Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream group won the balloting for party lists, according to some exit polls, while Saakashvili’s United National Movement claimed a stronger performance in single-member districts. The parliamentary majority may still go either way, with official results to be released today.
Georgia, a key link in energy-transit routes between Europe and the Caspian, fought a 2008 war with Russia in a failed bid to regain control of a breakaway region. Ivanishvili, accused by the Georgian government of ties with Russia where he made his fortune, vowed to end the rule of Saakashvili, 44, who allied the country with the West and has a year remaining in his presidential term.
“The strong showing for opposition is a clear message to Saakashvili that his policies were not supported by the entire population,†IHS Global Insight analyst Lilit Gevorgyan said in an e-mail. “He can no longer afford dismissing opposition figures as Russian agents or enemies of Georgia.â€
Georgia’s dollar-denominated government bonds due in 2021 rose yesterday, pushing the yield to a record-low 4.705 percent from 4.745 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Exit Polls
Georgian Dream gained 50 percent of the votes versus 41 percent for UNM, according to an Edison Research poll for private television station Rustavi 2 and Imedi TV. According a different poll by GfK, released by the country’s public broadcaster, Georgian Dream and UNM each got 33 percent.
The ruling party is confident of retaining a majority in the parliament, where it had 112 out of the 150 seats, Davit Darchiashvili, an official for UNM, said before the release of the exit polls. The party expects to win most of the 73 seats distributed in single-member district voting even if the opposition gains the upper hand in the remaining 77 mandates allocated through party lists, he said.
“We never had any doubts and our polls as well as other TV stations’ polls had to agree that we did win,†Tina Khidasheli from the Georgian Dream coalition said yesterday by phone. “The most important thing now is to maintain peace and calm tonight.â€
A few hundred people gathered at the capital’s Freedom Square, watching television screens broadcasting the opposition channel owned by the billionaire’s wife.
‘High Stakes’
“The stakes are very high for both sides,†Gevorgyan said. “The quality of the vote as assessed by international monitors will be crucial. If they agree that Saakashvili’s party has expressly won the elections this will somewhat dampen the opposition’s efforts to challenge the results. If the verdict agrees that there were some violations, this may be a green light for the losing party to demand recount.â€
While Saakashvili’s party held a lead of more than 20 percentage points last month, the Sept. 18 release of footage showing prison guards beating and raping male inmates with a broom handle and truncheon sparked mass protests in the country ruled for the past nine years by Saakashvili.
“It is clear that Georgian Dream has achieved a lot during this period,†said Alexander Rondeli, head of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies in Tbilisi. “Exit polls are not the final results, so let’s wait and see.â€
Voting stations closed at 8 p.m. in Tbilisi. The Edison poll said that 35 percent of respondents declined to answer, a figure that stood at 32 percent for GfK.
Saakashvilli’s Critics
While Saakashvili, who rose to power in the 2003 Rose Revolution, is credited with fostering an economic turnaround, Ivanishvili, 56, and other critics say he has curtailed free speech and political competition.
Former allies of the president including ex-Foreign Minister Salome Zourabishvili and former parliament speaker Nino Burjanadze, a key figure in the revolution, turned against him and joined the opposition.
“If we see some form of power sharing -- and it looks like one way or another it’s gonna have to happen -- it’s going to be really unprecedented.†said Mark Mullen, chairman of Transparency International Georgia.
Ivanishvili’s party alleged “irregularities†and “intimidation†yesterday during the voting. About 20,000 observers, most from the Georgian Dream, weren’t accredited as polling stations opened, while a monitor in Tbilisi was attacked by an unknown person, leaving her with a broken leg, the party said in an e-mailed statement.
‘Extremely High’
Saakashvili’s party has seen no “major irregularities†at polling stations and called the opposition’s allegations unfounded and “discrediting for the elections,†according to Chiora Taktakishvili, a party spokeswoman.
The Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe, a 56-nation democracy watchdog that has supplied a quarter of the 1,600 international observers monitoring the vote, said that all parties need to allow peaceful and democratic elections.
“We have made very clear that the expectations for this election are extremely high and that they will determine the pace and intensity of our relations with Georgia,†Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, told reporters yesterday in Brussels.
Saakashvili, a U.S.-educated lawyer who disbanded the traffic police after taking office, has won plaudits from international organizations for reducing corruption and eliminating red tape in his country of 4.5 million people.
‘Important Day’
Economic growth accelerated to 8.2 percent from a year earlier in the second quarter from 6.8 percent in the previous three months. Georgia is ranked 16th out of 183 countries in terms of ease of doing business, according to the World Bank’s 2012 survey, ahead of Germany, Japan and Switzerland. In 2006, the Black Sea nation ranked 126th.
“It’s an important day for Georgia, as it’s deciding what happens to the European dream, what happens to the idea of democracy,†Saakashvili told reporters after voting.
Up for grabs in the election is the prime minister’s post, which will become more powerful than the presidency once Saakashvili ends his term next year because of legislative changes two years ago. A two-thirds parliamentary majority is needed to confirm a premier.
Ivanishvili said that his past business experience and management skills would make him a good premier, adding that he will leave business after exiting politics.
Saakashvili accuses the Russian government of spending billions of dollars, which the Kremlin denies, and staging a military build-up in a bid to influence the vote.
Ivanishvili’s Wealth
The U.S., Europe and Russia all vie for sway over Georgia, which is home to the three pipelines that allow the transit of gas and oil to the Black Sea and Turkey from neighboring Azerbaijan while bypassing Russia. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, owned by companies including BP Plc (BP/), Chevron Corp. (CVX), ConocoPhillips (COP), Total SA (FP), Eni SpA (ENI) and Statoil ASA (STL), was temporarily shut in the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia.
Ivanishvili, who was stripped of his Georgian citizenship and holds a French passport, is worth $ 6.4 billion, according to Forbes magazine, equivalent to almost half of Georgia’s $ 14.4 billion economy.
He made his money in banking and the sale of metals before giving up his Russian citizenship and selling his assets there this year to focus on Georgian politics. He says he’s spent $ 1.7 billion of his own money on initiatives to overhaul Georgia’s police force and military, among others, and would normalize relations with Russia after five years if his party wins the election, though he denies any ties to President Vladimir Putin’s administration.
“What I want is a colorful parliament, one that has more than one ruling party,†said 50-year-old pensioner Tsira Chubinidze outside a Tbilisi polling station yesterday after voting. “It’s time for broader representation.â€
To contact the reporters on this story: Helena Bedwell in Tbilisi at hbedwell@bloomberg.net; Henry Meyer in Moscow at hmeyer4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net
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