Fraud Competition at the Kutaisi City Hall – Competition Participants Protest Result

Shorena Kakabadze, Kutaisi 

Kutaisi Competition-Testing Commission followed the recommendation of the Interagency Task Force for Free and Fair Elections [IATF] to stop personnel changes in local self-government agencies before elections and temporarily suspended its activities. The results of the first stage of the competition are still widely discussed by the society.

Society was criticizing the competition announced by the City Council in the Kutaisi City Hall after the reorganization from the very beginning. Head of the Competition Commission was chairman of the City Council Tamaz Margvelashvili. The latter was blamed in partiality and incompetence. 

“If the second stage of the competition is held as partially as the first one, believe us, Kutaisi will get deadlocked for a longtime,” members of the City Council from the National Movement said.

The first stage of the competition finished with the election of vice-mayors (the second stage aims to select heads of service units at the City Hall). The Commission left the old candidates to the positions. Kote Lomidze, Tengiz Topuridze and Gia Sharabidze, who acted as interim vice-mayors after the reorganization, turned up non-alternative candidates for the positions.

“This competition was fabricated because they did not consider candidatures of several people – including mine. The reason of declining our candidatures was very stupid – allegedly we had not submitted necessary documents. Everything is obvious. It would have been better not to hold any competition at all and appoint desirable candidates directly to the positions,” one of the contestants – head of the Center for the Protection of Civil Interests Manana Managadze told humanrights.ge.

She blames the commission in partiality and incompetence and mentioned an example of Bakur Balanchivadze, an applicant for the vice-mayor’s vacant position. Balanchivadze was Kutaisi Mayor in 2006-2007 and in May, 2013 he participated in the competition for the city mayor’s position.

“Mr. Bakur’s example is enough to evaluate this competition. The man, who successfully passed the first stage of the mayor’s competition, was declined because of invalid documents. Simply, they do not want to have clever, active and patriot authority in this city. Unfortunately, some other skills and features are important here,” Managadze said.

Part of society also protested defeat of Balanchivadze in this competition. Last week, locals gathered in front of the Kutaisi City Hall and protested the fact saying “people with obscure past and unclear political orientation govern the city and nobody needs honest and educated people like Balanchivadze and Dimitry Kopalyani.”

The protesters recalled September 11, when, having returned from the vacation, Dimitry Kopalyani resigned from his position after his meeting with the vice-mayors and council members in his office. 

Humanrights.ge contacted the former mayor and competition participant Bakur Balanchivadze and asked to comment on the fact.

“Why do you need my comment? They do not care about comments, articles, rubrics and criticism. When a person is shameless, you should not pay attention to his/her behavior. I cannot make better comment. The worse fact is that I think the society also put up with this situation. Where are brave activists of the Georgian Dream? Have they already received positions and give in? Where are the majoritarian MP and his office? What do the city council and its commission do now? Who makes decisions with regard to the fates of people and city – those poor MPs? I will not say anything else. Society shall judge the rest.”

Representatives of the Kutaisi City Hall claim the accusations are groundless. “The requirements of the competition were equal for every applicant. The commission worked hard and impartially. Any competition might cause some questions. As for declaring mistrust to the competition, it is absolutely groundless accusation,” said Mamuka Mgvdeladze, deputy chairman of the Competition-Testing Commission.