Voting and political attitudes in Soviet Georgia

Abstract

(70% of those eligible) could choose. In the October election 182 delegates were elected-all from the Round Table-Free Georgia bloc, headed by Zviad Gamsakhurdia, and the Communist Party of Georgia. A second election was held on 11 November to choose 68 delegates in districts where none of the candidates received more than half of the votes (59 of 125 voting districts) or where less than half of the eligible voters participated (seven districts). The Round Table was the clear winner-ultimately capturing 155 of the 250 Supreme Soviet seats (62%). The Communist Party of Georgia won 95 seats (37%) and, in the second round of elections, two seats (1%) were claimed by other parties.1 Gamsakhurdia's party is the Helsinki Union of Georgia. Other parties in the Round Table-Free Georgia bloc include the St Ilia the Righteous Society, the Merab Kostava Society, the Union of Georgian Traditionalists, the Popular Front of Georgia-Radical Union, the National Liberal Union of Georgia and the National Christian Party of Georgia. The platforms of all the political parties participating in the election, including that of the Communist Party, called for Georgian independence and a switch to a market economy. The Round Table platform is pointed on these questions, stating that 'national independence will have to be elaborated in a transitional period, during which the legal, political and economic foundations of the new state will be formulated'; declaring that 'Soviet troops on Georgian soil constitute the occupation force of a foreign power'; and indicating that 'switching to a market economy will create good conditions for Georgia's integration into the international economy'. In an interview with the party newspaper Komunisti, Givi Gumbaridze, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia, was also explicit about Georgian independence. A 'qualitatively new stage' is beginning, he stated; and 'a restoration of the independent statehood of Georgia, preceded by a period of transition, should happen'. Indeed, Gumbaridze added, 'the highest aim of the Communist Party of Georgia is the restoration of national independence. This policy is irreversible and there is no alternative to it'. Gumbaridze also opposed the Union