On March 4 Zura Khachikadze turned 18 years old, an age he has been waiting to experience his right of voting. He knows well that on May 30 Tbilisi residents are going to elect a mayor and he is ready to go to the polls.
“Every time when we had elections in Tbilisi I wanted to vote, because I am sure we can change the things, if we really want, but I couldn’t because of my age. Now I can do that. I have my favourite candidate and I’m going to support him, though I’m not a member of any party,” says the optimistic boy. But not everyone thinks as Zura does.
Ana Sardanadze is a 19-year-old student at Tbilisi State Academy of Arts, and she knows that an election will be held in May, but she doesn’t know the exact date, and not sure she will vote.
“Now I’m working on a very important painting, I don’t have time to pay attention to such things,” she says. “ I hope our parties will organize some meetings to inform people about their projects before elections, though I don’t believe the elections are going to be fair.”
On March 4 Zura Khachikadze turned 18 years old, an age he has been waiting to experience his right of voting. He knows well that on May 30 Tbilisi residents are going to elect a mayor and he is ready to go to the polls.
“Every time when we had elections in Tbilisi I wanted to vote, because I am sure we can change the things, if we really want, but I couldn’t because of my age. Now I can do that. I have my favourite candidate and I’m going to support him, though I’m not a member of any party,” says the optimistic boy. But not everyone thinks as Zura does.
Ana Sardanadze is a 19-year-old student at Tbilisi State Academy of Arts, and she knows that an election will be held in May, but she doesn’t know the exact date, and not sure she will vote.
“Now I’m working on a very important painting, I don’t have time to pay attention to such things,” she says. “ I hope our parties will organize some meetings to inform people about their projects before elections, though I don’t believe the elections are going to be fair.”
Harnessing the youth vote is an underrated goal in Georgia: so underrated, there are no statistics available showing the exact percentage of voters aged 18-25 out of the three million voters registered on the voters’ list. Unfortunately, neither the National Statistics Service, the National Democratic Institute, nor the Georgian Statistic Centre could offer this information. Not surprisingly, then, political parties are doing very little substantive programming to attract young voters.
Teona Chanidze, head of the youth department of the incumbent National Movement, said the party has planned many trainings, including free camping trips in the summer, among other projects. Though they haven’t implemented any of them yet.
“There are over 500 young active members of the party. They help us to inform people about our candidates and now, during the pre-election period, they do a great job going to the citizens’ places and registering their addresses,” she said.
The leading opposition party – Alliance for Georgia – can likewise point to a small but active membership, but little substantive programming.
“In our organization there are more than 100 young members, who can be grouped as very active, less active or just students practicing in their fields. But none of them receives monthly wage, and the purpose of their being here is the motivation that has the party,” says Leri Lapachi, leader of the Alliance for Georgia youth department.
The only parties showing active interest in young voters are a few opposition parties, the most well known among them being the Christian Democrats.
Mariam Goglidze is a 20-year-old politically active member of this political party. She volunteers there and helps to organize voter awareness campaigns for the fellow young voters.
In February they organized 2-3 trainings per week for 40-50 young people in Tbilisi at their offices to make explanations on the voting process and on how to behave when they don’t find their names on the voting list.
Other plans, said Goglidze, intended to realize in April and May are the folk concerts where Christian Democrat politicians can speak to the audience. Whereas most of the other opposition groups were more secretive about their plans. Rezi Sokhandze, a representative of the “New Rights” party claimed his party had a program, but didn’t want to share the information about their PR plan in March, saying there is still time, so people can wait.
“Of course, we think that the young people’s participance is very important, we are going to make several special projects for them, but I can’t tell you what exactly, because we don’t have any firm options, just ideas right now,” says Rezi Sokhadze.
The representatives of the Nation Forum and Movement for United Georgia parties said that they are waiting to hear a request from the university students of Georgia regarding a financial support to any project, like a pre-election concert or any other performance.
If so, they’ll wait long. Beqa Akhlauri, head of the youth movement of Georgian State University says they won’t take money from any political party and they don’t plan to organize an event to discuss the upcoming mayor’s race.
“Me and my team try to stand out of this dirty business. Thank God, my friends are of the same opinion about the bribes and future “chairs” in the government,” says Akhlauri.
In the meantime, this absence of outreach is creating more and more apathy in this key group of potential voters.
Lasha Ratiani, 20, who works as a restaurant manager, is not going to vote because he doesn’t know anything about the candidates. He thinks the parties should do something to inform people and not wait for the last moment.
“I really don’t know what are they going to promise this time. I think it will be better to know about those promises earlier to understand if they really gonna do that or not,” he said.
Not all young voters will boycott the polls on May 30, but they are, like voters of every age, searching for information about the candidates. Zaza Georgidze, 24, is an economist, and said he is going to vote by all means, though he still doesn’t know all candidates and their projects.
“I think every citizen should go and vote, but our parties are waiting for the last moment to introduce themselves and their plans, that’s why people don’t want to vote and just don’t believe,” he said.
in association with Nino Brown