Transparency International Georgia released an interim report on funding of the 2020 Election Campaign. The contributions made by majoritarian candidates were a separate focus of the research.
The interim report shows that out of 30 majoritarian candidates from the ruling party Georgian Dream, seven (including their family members and business partners) donated GEL 1 035 000 to the party after January 2020, which represents 6% of the total donations received by the party in this period.
“All seven majoritarian candidates have large-scale businesses and are connected in various forms to a total of 127 companies. These candidates are: Zaal Dugladze, Anton Obolashvili, Gocha Enukidze, Zaza Lominadze, Irakli Khakhubia, Davit Songulashvili and Vasil Chigogidze. There were cases when the business partners of one majoritarian candidate donated the same amount of money on the same day to the ruling party” – TI said.
As for the opposition parties, the report found that 15 out of the 25 majoritarian candidates (including their family members and business partners) from the electoral bloc “United National Movement, United Opposition – “Strength in Unity” donated GEL 565 670 to the parties in the electoral bloc after January 2020, which represents 15.1% of the total donations received by the parties united under the bloc in this period. “GEL 105 000 out of this amount was donated on the same day – October 8 – by four business partners of majoritarian candidate Murtaz Zodelava (Dimitri Dzagnidze, Giorgi Chiviashvili, Giorgi Gelkhauri and Beka Basilaia)” – TI said.
According to the interim report, seven out of 29 majoritarian candidates of the Alliance of Patriots of Georgia donated a total of GEL 421 990 to the party two months prior to the parliamentary elections, which represents 22.6% of the total donations received by the party in the same time period. “GEL 185 000 out of these donations were made by four majoritarian candidates (Ioseb Shatberashvili, Kakhaber Dzagania, Paata Jibladze, Archil Benidze) on the same day on September 10” – TI said.
