On 17 September, the International Republican Institute (IRI) published the results from their newest polls on Georgia. The surveys were conducted between 4-21 August.
According to the polls, 74% responded that they are very likely to vote in the upcoming elections and 16% stated that they are somewhat likely to go to vote, with only 5% stating that they are very unlikely to vote. When it comes to the party programs, most individuals surveyed (72%) considered the economic policy of a political party to be the most relevant part of the program, followed by healthcare and social security policy (56%) and education policy (12%). The polls showed that the candidates from political parties (33%), the party's past performances (23%) and the candidates party affiliation (15%) would be the most important factors for determining for whom the people would vote.
In terms of the popularity of the political parties in Georgia, the ruling Georgian Dream still enjoy the biggest confidence of voters with 33% stating it would be their first choice (3% second choice), followed by the United National Movement (UNM) (15%, 3%), European Georgia-Free Democrats (4%, 5%), For New Georgia-Strategy Agmashenebeli (4%, 4%), Alliance of Patriots (3%, 5%) and the Labour party (3%, 2%). On the question if some of the newly formed parties in the country could provide viable alternatives for the voters, only 20% of the correspondents answered positively and 56% negatively. The UNM (16%), Lelo (9%) and For New Georgia-Strategy Agmashenebeli (9%) were perceived as the most viable alternatives.
Answering on the achievements of the current government in the country, 22% said that the fight against Covid-19 was the biggest achievement, followed by healthcare reform (12%) and infrastructure projects (4%). Unemployment (10%), the economic situation in the country (9%) and false promises (9%) were on the other hand named as the biggest failures. Touching on the topic of the most reliable media channels for the voters 40% of the question said that it was Imedi TV, followed by Mtavari Arkhi (16%), Rustavi 2 (11%) and TV Pirveli (5%).
