Giorgi Papava from PMCG emphasized two facts that have been common for both Georgia’s and the US elections in terms of COVID-19 being the context of voting in both countries.
According to Papava, the main similarity was that voter turnover in both elections was surprisingly high. “If some of us thought that maybe people would not go to polling stations because of COVID and would not actively participate, I don’t think that this happened to a big extent. Of course, there were some groups of people who had been affected by the self-isolation and being in the hospitals, who probably had hard time voting; however, both in Georgia and in the US, I don’t think that the extent of such effect was huge” – Papava elaborated for The Checkpoints.
According to Papava, the main difference between the two countries was the way the COVID-19 had been handled in these two countries. “In Georgia’s case we saw that initially, the current ruling party gained quite a momentum during the so-called first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic when they accumulated quite a lead over the opposition and that to some extent I think disappeared after the second wave came into force which had been much more forceful and had impacted many more people than in the first case – Papava told The Checkpoints – And as for the US, there was no first wave, the second wave – there basically was one huge spread of the virus throughout the year and there was a clear debate whether Trump was handling it correctly or not”.
Papava said in the case of Georgia initially the criticism that the government was receiving was why we had been locking down the economy, but after opening up the economy, this criticism basically shifted from lockdown management to healthcare management.
“We clearly saw that initially when there was not enough information about the virus, the government chose a much safer solution locking down the economy, which obviously had its impact in terms of virus basically not spreading too much. And then for obvious reasons the government had to shift its emphasis on the economic development, basically hoping that it could manage the second wave; however, the numbers that we are seeing today are quite overwhelming” – Papava stated.
“Let’s hope this situation will be managed efficiently and we will not have further damage to the lives of Georgians as well as the economy” – he added.
