Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Who doesn’t want democracy for Georgia?

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Georgia adopted western-style democratic institutions. They have never functioned in a fully democratic manner, fluctuating between more liberal and authoritarian tendencies. That is, Georgia is and has been a hybrid regime.

But what do people want?

CRRC-Georgia and NDI’s December 2018 survey suggests that about half of the public thinks a western style liberal democracy (53%) is most suitable for the country. The other half of the country is split between not knowing what would be best for Georgia (14%), and thinking a system like the Soviet one, but more democratic and market-based (11%) would be suitable. One in ten (10%) report the Soviet system itself (10%) would be best, and another 10% report a strong authoritarian system that places order above freedom would be most suitable. Relatively few want a monarchy or hereditary autocracy (2%).

This leads to the question, who doesn’t think democracy is suitable for Georgia?

As the chart below shows, ethnic minorities, older people, and people with children in their home are less likely to think that democracy is the most suitable system for Georgia. People with higher levels of education are more likely to report a democracy is the most suitable form of government for the country. Having a job may also be associated with a higher level of support for democracy. There is no statistically significant difference between those who use the internet once a week or more often and those who use it less often; between different settlement types; or sexes (male, female).


There is also a substantively large differences between poorer people and the relatively well off. The survey asked about ownership of ten different assets, and individuals who own 10 assets have a 63% chance of reporting that democracy is the most suitable system for Georgia compared with 41% for those with 0 of the assets asked about on the survey.



Preferences for democracy are also associated with different party preferences, as measured by intended vote choice. GD and UNM supporters (as measured by who they reported they would vote for if an election were held tomorrow) are a bit more likely to support democracy than supporters of other parties, those who refused to identify what party they support, and individuals who do not support any party.  In some sense, this might not be surprising. After all, both groups have substantial representation in parliament, likely meaning that they have at least some sense that democracy is serving their interests.


Who is less likely to think democracy is suitable for Georgia? Older people, poorer people, ethnic minorities, people with lower levels of education, those with children in their home, and those who do not support a party.

The data which the above analysis was made using is available here.

Monday, April 22, 2019

Perceptions of prosecutors’ and judges’ wheelings and dealings

On January 19th, 2019 the Rustavi 2 TV channel broadcast an investigative documentary Studio Monitor and Radio Liberty produced. The documentary “Judges in the Government’s Service” followed up on the government’s attempted confiscation of Constanta Bank from its founders in 2011. It further hinted at alleged misconduct by the prosecutors and judges.

Between January 28 and February 4, 2019 CRRC-Georgia conducted a follow-up phone survey to find out whether and how the public viewed the documentary. The survey asked about a number of issues presented in the documentary including:

  • If people knew that the Department to Investigate Offenses Committed in the Course of Legal Proceedings existed in the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia; 
  • Generally, in their opinion, how likely it was that the Prosecutor’s Office effectively prosecuted representatives of the justice system (judges, prosecutors) if it found they had committed offences in the course of legal proceedings;
  • How frequent or rare cases of judges in Georgia making deals with the government to have decisions favorable for them are;
  • If they could recall a specific, recent case of government representatives seizing property from private individuals. 
The phone survey resulted in 804 completed interviews. Its results are representative of the adult Georgian-speaking population of the country. The average margin of error of the survey is 2.6%. Results discussed in this blog are based on all completed interviews (804) and are weighted to the demographic characteristics of the population.

The documentary was broadcast on Rustavi 2 and shared on the websites and social media pages of Radio Liberty and Studio Monitor. Only 3% of the adult Georgian-speaking population of the country reported watching the film. Most of them (66%) saw it on Rustavi 2. Most respondents that saw the film (54%) found it convincing.

A small share of the public had heard of the Department to Investigate Offenses Committed in the Course of Legal proceedings. Only 12% of the adult Georgian-speaking population had heard that a special department was established at the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia to investigate offences committed in the course of legal proceedings. A large majority (87%) did not know about it.

People are often uncertain about the Prosecutor’s Office serving as a neutral actor in relation to the judiciary. About a quarter (26%) said it was fully likely or more likely than unlikely that the Prosecutor’s Office prosecuted judges and prosecutors if it found that they had committed offences in the course of legal proceedings. About the same share (27%) reported that it was more unlikely than not or entirely unlikely that the Prosecutor’s Office effectively prosecuted representatives of the justice system. For the most part, people found it hard to respond to this question and the most frequent response was ‘Don’t know’ (46%). One percent of respondents refused to answer the question.


As for judges making deals with the government, about a third (30%) of the population reported that in their opinion it was frequent, 27% said it was rare, and only 6% responded that it was never the case. A plurality (37%) could not answer the question.


Few people can recall a case of the government seizing private property. Respondents were asked to recall a specific, recent case of a government representative seizing property from private individuals. Only 1% could. Respondents generally said they did not know (49%), they could not recall a specific case (46%), or refused to answer the question (4%). Only a few people named specific cases. Those that did pointed to the Omega case, TBC Bank case, and Anzor Kokoladze case.


Overall, the data suggests a small share of the public is aware of the Prosecutor’s Office’s department for investigating crimes committed during legal proceedings. They are also generally uncertain about how the Prosecutor’s Office would deal with issues in the judiciary.

The phone survey conducted in January 28-February 4, 2019 resulted in 804 completed interviews. Its results are representative of the adult Georgian-speaking population of the country. The average margin of error of the survey is 2.6%. They survey is part of the “Promoting Prosecutorial Independence through Monitoring and Engagement (PrIME)” project funded by the European Union.  This blog post has been produced with the assistance of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of CRRC-Georgia and IDFI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

Monday, April 15, 2019

Georgians are split over the Prosecutor’s Office in Georgia

On November 3, 2018 Rustavi 2 broadcasted an investigative film created by the Studio Monitor and Radio Liberty about a suspended investigation of the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia. The film How to subjugate a judge? focused on accusations against prosecutors and judges related to the abuse of power, seizure of real estate, and giving of land to private individuals.

On November 16-28, 2018 CRRC-Georgia conducted a phone survey to find out if people watched the film and what was their attitude towards the issues raised in it. The survey specifically asked about:

  • How often people think prosecutors abuse power and make deals with judges; 
  • If the Prosecutor’s Office prosecutes current and former high-ranking officials impartially;
  • What the goal of the restoration of justice investigations was.
The phone survey resulted in 599 completed interviews. Its results are representative of the adult Georgian-speaking population of the country. The average margin of error of the survey is 2.4%. Results discussed in this blog are based on all completed interviews.  The data are weighted to reflect the demographics of the population.

Even though the film How to subordinate a judge? was broadcasted on Rustavi 2 and shared on the websites and social media pages of Radio Liberty and Studio Monitor, only 2% of the adult Georgian-speaking population reported watching it. The majority of those who watched saw it on Rustavi 2 and found the film convincing or partially convincing.

Respondents were asked if abuse of power by prosecutors in Georgia was, in their opinion, frequent, rare, or never occurred. Even though few watched the investigative video, a quarter of the public (27%) said abuse of power was frequent, 44% said it was rare, and only 8% reported it never happened in Georgia. About a fifth (21%) did not know what to answer to the question.
The same scale was used to ask about whether prosecutors made deals with judges to have favorable decisions. About a quarter of the population (28%) said they did not know. Another quarter (23%) said it happened frequently, 37% said it happened rarely, and 12% said it never took place.




Opinion on the Prosecutor’s Office in Georgia is relatively split. On the survey, about half the public (52%) reported trusting the Prosecutor’s Office (22% fully trust and 30% trust more than distrust). With current officials, 41% say the Prosecutor’s Office will prosecute them impartially and 41% partiality. The public is also split about former officials, with 41% reporting they would be prosecuted impartially and 38% partially. Interestingly, in terms of both current and former high-ranking officials, only 4% and 3% of the population, respectively, said the Prosecutor’s Office will not prosecute them at all, whether it is reasonable to do so or not.


Of those who responded that the Prosecutor’s Office will prosecute high-ranking officials very un-objectively (17%), more than a quarter (28%) recalled Saralidze’s case, 6% named the cases of Saralidze and Machalikashvili, and 3% the Partskhaladze case as recent examples of unfair prosecutions. However, almost half (49%) could not recall a specific case of unfair prosecution.
Of those who said the Prosecutor’s Office will prosecute former officials very un-objectively (11%), half (50%) could not recall a specific case, 6% named the Saralidze’s case, 4% the Mirtskhulava case, and 2% the cases of Robakidze and Merabishvili.

Studio Monitor and Radio Liberty discussed the “restoration of justice” that the Georgian Dream government initiated after coming to power in 2012. Respondents were asked their opinion about the “Restoration of Justice”. Officially, the process was meant to prosecute former high-ranking officials who allegedly abused power during the previous government. Although some groups argued that it was used for justifying persecution of political rivals. When asked what the goal of those investigations was, the most frequent response was “restoration of justice” (31%). A fifth (21%) reported it was a way to present the government positively to the public. About a third (30%) named political retribution as a goal of the “restoration of justice” investigations. Less than one fifth of the population (17%) said it was to punish criminals, and 12% related it to the protection of human rights. Another 16% of the population did not know what to answer to this question.


Note: Respondents were allowed to give multiple answers. Therefore, percentages do not add up to 100%.

Overall, the public is relatively split in terms of attitudes towards the Prosecutor’s Office. About half the public trusts them, and relatively equal shares think they will do their job impartially and partially when it comes to prosecuting current and former officials. This suggests the need to work towards increasing trust in the Prosecutor’s Office among the public that distrusts them.

[Note: The survey is part of the Promoting Prosecutorial Independence through Monitoring and Engagement (PrIME) project implemented by the Institute for Development of freedom of Information (IDFI) in partnership with CRRC-Georgia and Studio Monitor with the financial support of the European Union (EU).  The contents of this blogpost are the sole responsibility of CRRC-Georgia and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union, IDFI, and Studio Monitor.]

Monday, April 08, 2019

The election environment in minority areas of Georgia is getting worse

[Note: This article was published together with OC-Media. It was written by Dustin Gilbreath. The views presented in this article do not necessarily represent the views of CRRC-Georgia. The views presented in this article do not represent the views of the National Democratic Institute or any related entity.]

Post-election polling by CRRC-Georgia suggests that not only are elections most problematic in Georgia’s ethnic minority regions, they are also getting worse.

The 2018 presidential elections, and particularly, the events surrounding the second round, have come to be considered a setback for Georgia’s democratic trajectory. Between the first and second round, it was announced that 600,000 voters would have debt relief immediately following the elections, leading some to suggest this was a form of vote buying. A number of instances of electoral fraud were also alleged. The use of party coordinators around election precincts was also widely condemned.

Elections in minority regions have generally been worse in quality than in ethnic Georgian populated regions. Some statistical evidence suggests irregular voting behaviour if not fraud in these regions. Moreover, these regions of the country consistently vote for whoever is in power.

The situation appears to be getting worse, at least when compared with the parliamentary elections of 2016.

CRRC-Georgia and the National Democratic Institute’s 2016, 2017, and 2018 post-election polling asked voters, ‘Thinking back to the situation when you voted in the polling station/place (either in the 1st or 2nd round), please say whether you agree or disagree with the following?’

  • It was well ordered;
  • It was overcrowded;
  • It was intimidating;
  • The election officials were well prepared.
Respondents were also asked whether they noticed party coordinators around the polling station asking for personal information.

The results suggest that people in predominantly minority settlements were about three times more likely to report seeing party coordinators collecting personal information outside polling places. People in minority areas were 2.5 times as likely to report that the polling place was intimidating and four times more likely to report the polling station was overcrowded. They were 14 percentage points less likely to report that election officials were well prepared, and 13 percentage points less likely to report that the polling place was well ordered.


All respondents were also asked ‘Please tell us whether [each of the following] occurred or not during the election process’:
  • People voting more than once (including carousel voting);
  • Intimidation of voters or party representatives;
  • Use of administrative resources to benefit a campaign;
  • Bribing of voters;
  • Pressure to donate or not donate to certain candidate/party;
  • Mobilising state employees to participate in campaign/vote for a certain candidate;
A similar pattern as the above holds with these questions, with respondents consistently reporting most of the above problems more often in predominantly minority settlements than in ethnic Georgian settlements. The only activity which was not reported more often (statistically) in minority settlements than ethnic Georgian ones was putting pressure on people to donate.


The data suggest that problems with elections in minority regions are on the rise. The share of individuals in predominantly minority settlements reporting that the polls were intimidating more than tripled between 2016 and 2018. The share reporting it was overcrowded more than doubled between 2016 and 2018. The share of individuals in predominantly minority settlements reporting that the election precinct was well ordered also declined between 2016 and 2017.

In predominantly ethnic Georgian settlements, there was a decline between 2017 and 2018 in terms of how well prepared election officials were perceived to be. There was also a slight decline in terms of people reporting that the polling station was overcrowded. However, there was no change in the share reporting it was well ordered or intimidating.

The 2018 elections had problems. While the conduct of elections in predominantly minority areas in Georgia has been historically problematic, these problems appear to have gotten worse, at least by comparison to the elections in 2016 and 2017.

Tuesday, April 02, 2019

Georgia’s far-right are anti-Russian but share Russian narratives

[Note: This article was published in OC-Media. It is available in Georgian, here. David Sichinava is the Research Director at CRRC-Georgia. The views expressed in this article represent the views of the author alone. The article was written within the auspices of the Russian Propaganda Barometer Project funded through the East-West Management Institute’s ACCESS program.]


A USAID-funded study by CRRC-Georgia released on Monday shows that the far-right in Georgia is engaged in activities similar to their Russian supported counterparts in the European Union but speak more negatively about Russia than the West. Whether witting or unwitting, the implications are far-reaching for Georgia.

Since the mid-2000s, numerous media and academic sources have alleged that Russia is weaponising far-right and anti-liberal politics worldwide. This can be seen in Russian support for organised far-right groups within the EU, which in turn are used to attempt to influence domestic and regional politics.

Russian political elites have further used the anti-liberal far-right through the promotion of what has been called the ‘Russian model’ of authoritarian rule.

A crucial component of the model promotes Russia’s image as a protector of ‘traditional values’, including pro-religious and socially conservative views. Taken collectively, these far-right groups’ efforts can be understood as aimed at manipulating European public opinion through engendering anti-liberal sentiment within the EU.

To understand potential sources of Russian propaganda in Georgia and the far-right more broadly, CRRC-Georgia’s study analysed more than 26,000 posts from approximately 70 far-right Georgian-language Facebook pages.

The data suggest a growing appetite among Georgians for radical right-wing ideas. Between late 2015 to mid-2018, page likes for far-right pages increased eight-fold, from 89,000 to 760,000. Although there is clearly increased engagement on social media, this likely also reflects increased internet penetration in Georgia, with new internet users with previously far-right ideas finding far-right Facebook groups.


Besides purely nationalist sentiments, these groups are apt to criticise the liberal world order from a right-wing perspective, thus resonating with what Russia has endorsed. Some pages also reflect specific Russian talking points.

An illustrative example of right-wing, Georgian-language Facebook pages amplifying pro-Russian narratives can be seen in online opinions toward the US-funded Richard Lugar Centre for Public Health Research in Tbilisi. Since its opening in 2013, Russian politicians have been especially anxious about the establishment of the centre and frequently claim it is a test site for biological weapons. Following the loss of 15 lives to a flu outbreak in Georgia in early 2019, several right-wing pages shared posts accusing the laboratory of causing the outbreak.

While the number of social media posts talking about the lab in relation to the flu outbreak was small (18), their messages reached a wide audience: these 18 posts earned 754 likes from visitors and were commented on 538 times. Social media posts in which right-wing groups discussed the Lugar Laboratory were shared 1,639 times.

As previous analysis has highlighted, Georgia’s far-right is a heterogeneous crowd, and labelling them uniformly pro-Russian is misleading. In fact, the analysis of 26,000 social media posts shows that Georgia’s far-right speaks more negatively about Russia than the West on the whole. A sentiment analysis, a machine learning technique, scored conversations about Russia as net negative compared with almost neutral for the West.

Still, some pages which have pro-Russian slants also boast large followings. For instance, before being blocked by Facebook, Georgian Idea had about 40,000 subscribers. Another nationalist group, Georgian March, is followed by over 17,000 users and another 16,000 users subscribe to its content. On the whole, both groups speak more positively than negatively about Russia.

The analysis also suggests that pro-Russian pages actively engage with their audiences. Content created by the pro-Russian Georgian Idea garnered about 25,483 comments and 180,026 likes, while pro-Russian Georgian March attracted 32,761 comments from users. Importantly, other nationalist pages were less successful in engaging their audiences.

In contrast to the above pages, a large majority of far-right groups were not explicitly pro-Russian. Rather, the content of their messages was critical of both Russia and the West. The latter is usually criticised for pushing Georgia to accept a ‘liberal political agenda’. In contrast, Russia is portrayed as an enemy responsible for Georgia’s territorial conflicts.

While there is little besides circumstantial evidence that (parts of) Georgia’s far right is funded by Moscow, the data show that they do propagate messages that resonate with the Russian government’s vision of the world.

Despite sharing a similar vision, most far-right pages attack Russia with more vigour than the EU. While it is unclear whether some of these groups are backed by Russia, it is clear is that they at least amplify if not plant pro-Russian sentiments among the Georgian public.