BLAU
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Unfortunately all my well thought out 'meteorological prognosis' proposed for last October (1999), the last month of the campaign for the seats in the Georgian Parliament, has proved to be absolutely true.
The election were held last October 31 and they resulted in no seats for the political left election bloc, "The United Communist Party of Georgia (Stalinist) and the Union of Working People". If you want to know why the bloc met with failure, you are welcome to the following analytical material (printed in the newspaper "Zarya Vostoka", #1, 2000. pages 1-3, under the heading of 'The results of the elections to the Parliament of Georgia').
The party in power 'was at the head of the poll'. The forces, the people who had robbed most of all, had become very rich at the expense of the people's misfortune and had abstained from nothing, violating not only the laws but also the common ethical standards of human intercourse, resorted in view of the whole community to much violence, intimidation, physical insult, total graft and total falsification. The upper hand was gained by the forces which followed the firm directions of Mr. Shevardnadze: participating in the election of the political parties which have no money makes no sense at all and to be a candidate for the post of the country's president without possessing capital is sheer madness. This is the credo of the present Georgian power. It has been known for a long time as a credo of the capitalist bourgeois democracy. We know about it from textbooks, but now unfortunately we learned in practice about the charms of bourgeois democracy of the worst type.
Great support in gaining the victory was lent to the President and his team by the leaders of all Western countries, the financial bosses in the first place. But not without reason when just as usual they (the West) encouraged by the USA in September of 1999, when these Western world bosses publicly declared that the Western countries are very beholden to Mr. Shevardnadze. So they pay for the break-up of the USSR, for the break-down of Georgia and for the war in the Caucasus. Having heard in the press that 'the world is beholden to Mr. Shevardnadze', in October of 1999 he received the most incentive from Germany. Mr. Shevardnadze is tirelessly admired for his activities in all of the many spheres of 'democratization' of the country and for the reforms carried out in it. He is praised by all of the Western presidents and heads of countries. They sent him many telegrams of congratulations without even waiting for the election results to be announced. The citizens of Georgia are indignant with Mr. Shevardnadze and damn him as they are living in unbearable conditions.
The 'victory' was gained by Mr. Shevardnadze and his team through falsification in which the present Georgian power is very experienced. Many people, including foreign observers, noticed and remarked on all the infringements in the election process. But the parliamentary elections were more or less correctly estimated by Mr. Peter Anderson, the director of The Borda Institute and which was fully printed in the Georgian newspaper "Akhali Taoba" #306, Nov. 6, 1999. He openly declared that numerous infringements had been allowed during the course of the elections, mostly in the outlying districts of the country, i.e. in the towns and the regions.
Tbilisi differed from the outlying districts of the country in the infringements made through many tricks. "Strong parties took their electoral top vote in all of the election districts." The organic law itself is no good. "The electoral system itself is faulty; 'supporters and opponents' is already a system of conflict, and it will never lead to democracy because under such a system we deal with illegal dictatorship." "The parliamentary elections in Georgia that were held on October 31, 1999 was very undemocratic" - concludes Mr. Peter Anderson.
It is widely known that the President and the government have carried out a real hunt after the Communists and the patriots for a long time. The president has repeatedly and abusively labeled our party and our movement for the last five years. Shevardnadze himself set the police bodies on us, demanding that the General Prosecutor and other law bodies "investigate the lawfulness of the activities of the UCP (United Communist Party) of Georgia". In 1998, after an act of terrorism, not having investigated as to who was guilty of that terrorist act, the president and then the Security Minister demanded that the UCPG be banned, claiming that it was "a fifth column financed by reactionary forces of Russia". A wave of summonses, 'invitations', interrogations and warnings were made by the Security Service bodies. Then there quickly began searches, arrests and mass media publications of material on everything and telephone conversations plus other fabrications. The scare campaign by the security bodies plus arrests of the leaders of the UCPG and the Peoples' Patriotic Union of Georgia were carried out just before the elections, as a very sizable "bouquet gift" of this Shevardnadze's democracy. There are no words to describe this campaign against the political opponents, which influenced the results of the elections but not in favor of the UCPG.
It should be mentioned that the government had used an insidious method before these elections, by cleverly having established their own three political parties for the war veterans and also labor leaders. This was done in order to utilize fraud and pay-off. It is these parties that the elder Georgian generation of our party (UCPG) joined.
The activities of the patriotic organization as well as the activities of its members in localities amongst the population were weak. They lacked the diligent ongoing work and the explaining to the voters all the truth and details what were involved in such an election campaign. These methods were the needed elements in order that we would have victory or even some successes.
We all knew that during the elections we were going to have a very hard time and intense struggle, with a very clever and well financed opponent, but we unfortunately failed to draw young people into this struggle. We need young members in the patriotic movement if we are to have future gains.
There also appeared sheer traitors in our ranks and they were infiltrated into all of our organizations with the express purpose of sowing discord and apathy. Of course, our task is to get rid of them as soon as possible.
The causes of the failure in the past elections of October 31, 1999 should be thoroughly analyzed by everyone of us and practical measures towards a very radical improvement of our work with the masses must be prepared out and carried out. As readers of NSC know, now Shevardnadze is again the president!
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