The Georgian opposition political party Alliance of Patriots is facing penalties because the Central Election Commission (CEC) found that the anti-Turkish ads party violated the election code. “The election program shall not contain propaganda for war or violence, appeal for change or overthrow of the existing state and social order by violence, for violation of the territorial integrity of Georgia, for national strife and enmity, or for religious or ethnic confrontation,” the CEC emphasized the country’s election code.
To note, the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) informed the CEC of the party violations on 2 September. The watchdog reported that with their misleading content the Alliance of Patriots party tried to demonstrate that Turkey has occupied 33% of the Georgian soil (Caucasus Watch reported). The party faced condemnation from both Georgian Dream and several opposition parties over billboards erected in the Autonomous Republic of Adjara. The billboards set up near the Turkish border and in the regional capital, Batumi, displayed Adjara in red — along with Abkhazia and Tskhinvali (South Ossetia).
On 31 August, Georgia’s State Audit Office has launched an investigation into the legality of the funding of the 'Alliance of Patriots of Georgia' party, following the Dossier Center’s publication, which tracks the criminal activities associated with the Kremlin and where it stood that the party requested more than $8 million from the Administration of the President of Russia (Caucasus Watch reported).The Head of Adjara’s government, Tornike Rizhvadze, called the banner ‘absolutely unacceptable’ while the opposition Strategy Aghmashenebeli Party demanded it to be investigated. Supporters of other opposition groups accused the Alliance of Patriots of stoking separatism and waging an anti-Turkey campaign in the region.
The Alliance of Patriots initially defended the billboards as a warning against ‘Turkey’s economic and ideological expansion’ in the region. Later, party leader Irma Inashvili suggested that the United National Movement Party (UNM) may have sabotaged the poster with an ‘altered design.’
