Tbilisi's Mayoral Candidates Missing Their Marbles

Published on June 8, 2014

TbilisiPolitics

Re­gard­less of the air of nov­elty con­jured up by changes to the elec­toral code, the Geor­gian Dream’s can­di­date for Tbil­isi mayor, Davit Nar­ma­nia, has been pegged as the sure fire vic­tor of this year’s may­oral race, leav­ing lit­tle room for mys­tery or sur­prise. But de­spite the po­ten­tially pre­dictable out­come, the di­verse and slightly bizarre group of can­di­dates run­ning for Tbil­isi mayor may pro­vide a sprin­kling of spec­ta­cle to an oth­er­wise un­re­mark­able race.

Nar­ma­nia him­self is per­haps the least ec­cen­tric of the bunch. Serv­ing as the coun­try’s min­is­ter of re­gional de­vel­op­ment since the Oc­to­ber 2012 Par­lia­men­tary elec­tions pro­pelled the Geor­gian Dream back onto the po­lit­i­cal play­ing field; Nar­ma­nia has been called “one of the best min­is­ters in the new gov­ern­ment”. He holds a PhD in eco­nom­ics and is a full pro­fes­sor at the Tbil­isi State Uni­ver­sity. But while Nar­ma­nia has been praised for spend­ing 800 mil­lion GEL (332 mil­lion Euros) on in­fra­struc­ture and de­vel­op­ment in 2013, his plans for Tbil­isi’s fu­ture have been lam­basted for bor­der­ing on the utopian. He re­cently de­clared that he will plant one mil­lion trees in the cap­i­tal dur­ing his may­oral term, a feat crit­ics have deemed spa­tially im­pos­si­ble.

In keep­ing with the United Na­tional Move­ment’s (UNM) propen­sity to pro­tect politi­cians under in­ves­ti­ga­tion, Ni­coloz Melia, the UNM’s can­di­date for Tbil­isi’s mayor, is per­haps best known for his court cases. In Sep­tem­ber 2013, he was charged with abuse of power while serv­ing as head of Geor­gia’s Na­tional En­force­ment Bu­reau, a po­si­tion he held prior to the 2012 par­lia­men­tary elec­tions. The case in ques­tion is re­lated to Cartu Bank, an en­tity that be­longs to for­mer Prime Min­is­ter and leader of the Geor­gian Dream, bil­lion­aire Bidz­ina Ivan­ishvili.

After Ivan­ishvili de­clared his in­ten­tion to go into pol­i­tics in 2011, the bank promptly ran into dif­fi­cul­ties that of­fi­cials claim were caused by a UNM plot to bank­rupt the bank. While Melia de­nies his in­volve­ment in the scheme, he is im­pli­cated by ev­i­dence pre­sented to the court dur­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Hav­ing been re­leased from de­ten­tion on $15,000 bail, the UNM politi­cian has con­tin­ued in his role as gov­er­nor of the Tbil­isi dis­trict Mts­minda. But if Melia ap­pears un­fazed by his court case, it may be be­cause he is no stranger to the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. In May 2013 he was also charged with hooli­gan­ism after a phys­i­cal con­fronta­tion un­folded be­tween sev­eral UNM lead­ers at the Tbil­isi based restau­rant La Trufe.

Shim­my­ing out of the tra­di­tional UNM/Geor­gian Dream di­chotomy is the in­de­pen­dent can­di­date Dim­itri Lortkipanadze. Led by Nino Bur­janadze -- the for­mer speaker of par­lia­ment and Mar­garet Thatcher look-alike who was a semi-se­ri­ous con­tender in the 2013 Pres­i­den­tial elec­tions -- a coali­tion of sev­eral non-par­lia­men­tary op­po­si­tion par­ties, known as the United Po­si­tion, named Lortkipanadze their can­di­date for Tbil­isi city mayor. Lortkipanadze’s pre­vi­ous po­lit­i­cal ca­reer can hardly be qual­i­fied as a glow­ing suc­cess. An in­con­se­quen­tial mem­ber of par­lia­ment from 2008-2012, he made an un­suc­cess­ful bid for the pub­lic de­fender’s post in 2009 and failed to se­cure the po­si­tion of om­buds­man in late 2012. In fact, al­most all of his sup­port comes from the fam­i­lies of pris­on­ers, whose rights the United Po­si­tion can­di­date has ve­he­mently de­fended. But while his de­fense of those be­hind bars is com­mend­able, Lortkipanadze’s hu­man­ism is un­der­mined by his vit­riol to­wards other mar­gin­al­ized groups. The can­di­date is best known through­out the cap­i­tal for a ho­mo­pho­bic hate speech that was viewed thou­sands of time on You Tube.

But while Lortkipanadze’s ca­reer leaves some­thing to be de­sired, his can­di­dacy is prefer­able to that of Asmat Tk­abladze’s for the sole rea­son that he has a po­lit­i­cal past to speak of. The Labour party’s can­di­date is well known around town, but not for her vot­ing record. A quick Google search will lead you to the ac­tress’s IMDb page, fully equipped with a list of her most pop­u­lar films. Per­haps upon choos­ing a can­di­date the Labour party de­ter­mined it would be more de­sir­able to se­lect some­one whose most pop­u­lar piece isn’t mired in in­tol­er­ance.

And these are just some of the most well-known can­di­dates. This June 15, Tbil­isi will be team­ing with hope­ful of­fice-seek­ers, most of whom don’t stand a chance against the brawler and ho­mo­phobe who could give the Geor­gian Dream’s poster boy a run for his money. Some of these can­di­dates in­clude Teimu­raz Mur­vanidze, a set de­signer nom­i­nated by ex-for­eign min­is­ter Sa­lome Zoura­bichvili’s party Geor­gia’s Way; Mikheil Salu­ashvili, a can­di­date nom­i­nated by the party “In the Name of the Lord- the Lord is Our Truth”, which re­ceived 0.08% of votes in the 2013 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion; and Ina Inashvili, the owner of the media out­let Obieq­tivi, best known for its af­fil­i­a­tion with one of the men fea­tured in a leaked sex video that led to the de­ten­tion of ex-Deputy In­te­rior Min­is­ter Gela Khvedelidze.

With this aus­pi­cious as­sem­ble of con­tenders, can any­one re­ally won­der why Nar­ma­nia would win by a land­slide?