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Georgian Political Parties and Online Social Network: Politics as usual? 

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usually do not have a deadline and can last for months. In fact, the number of 

respondents indicates how many people, both supporters and opponents, 

regularly accessed a party’s website and attempted to contribute to the party’s 

activities. 

Moreover, only four (National Forum, Free Democrats, Labour Party, and 

Christian Democrats) of the ten monitored party websites provided online 

application forms to apply for party membership. The others did not offer such 

an opportunity. It is important to note that the political parties, including the 

most popular at the time, the then-ruling United National Movement, abstained 

from putting visitor counters on their web pages – a clear indication that they 

were frustrated with the number of visitors and, therefore, reluctant to compete 

with other parties.    

None of the monitored parties, including the then-ruling party, published 

information about the number of their members and supporters by city or region. 

However, the ruling party’s website was more open than the others because it 

provided information about the leadership and location of its regional offices. 

The websites of the Labour Party and New Rights also contained information 

about the location of their regional offices. 

Only the United National Movement and Christian Democrats’ websites 

provided data about donations to the party, including the name and address of a 

donating company and the amount of the donation. This information was absent 

on the other parties’ websites. It is noteworthy that financial declarations of 

Georgian political parties are freely available; they are published annually on 

the Internet and can be accessed by everyone. (see Tab. 2). However, some 

political parties prefer not to publish this type of information on their websites.  

Table 2: Donations to political parties in Georgia (absolute values; year 2012) 

Political party 

Amount of donations in GEL 

United National Movement 

13,434,000 

Georgian Dream Coalition

12

 4,607,000 

Christian Democrats 

961,000 

Labour Party 

337,000 

12

Combined donation to six member parties belonging to the coalition.

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Kornely Kakachia, Tamar Pataraia 

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On the whole, funds provided by the state and donations accounted for the 

largest share of political parties’ incomes in Georgia.

13

 (The 2012 Georgian 

budget totalled 7 billion GEL (some 4.3 billion USD), whereas the GDP 

amounted to 26.1 billion GEL). A breakdown of the expenditure shows that the 

political parties directed most of their funds to pay for office rent, 

communication costs, advertising, and wages. Political associations allocated 

the largest part of their money, 81% on average, to TV political ads, whereas 

online ads (on the Internet) were at the bottom of their priorities. In fact, only 

two political parties – the Free Democrats and the United National Movement – 

used Internet ads, but on a very limited scale.

14

In sum, by the beginning of 2012, almost all Georgian political parties had 

their own websites, but the contents of these sites were largely static, general, 

and ideologically vague. Moreover, the websites were rarely updated or used for 

the distribution of information. To promote the parties’ information, the 

websites were linked to the parties’ Facebook accounts. 

Political parties on Facebook 

Among all of the social networks available in Georgia today, Facebook is

the world’s most popular social network (World Map of Social Networks; 

Forbes, 2012). It retains the first position in terms of active involvement by 

Georgian politicians and political parties. In particular, it has taken over as the 

key platform for mobilisations. Facebook provides Georgian political parties 

with a useful opportunity to talk directly to targeted groups and to significantly 

expand their target audience, popularise their policies and activities, campaign 

for elections, and respond in a prompt and timely way to voters’ concerns. To 

succeed in campaigning, it is vital for a party to provide supporters with timely 

updates, expand the number of supporters, maintain constant communication 

with supporters, and mobilise them around particular initiatives. For Georgia, a 

country with limited media independence, this aspect is especially important.

15

13

 Transparency International – Georgia, Finances of Political Parties 2012, April 12, 2012; 

http://transparency.ge/post/report/akhali-angarishshi-politikuri-partiebis-finansebi-12-4-13

14

 Transparency International – Georgia, Finances of Political Parties 2012, April 12, 2012; 

http://transparency.ge/post/report/akhali-angarishshi-politikuri-partiebis-finansebi-12-4-13

15

 Koridze, Zviad. Georgian Media & Georgian Facebook. Caucasus International. Au-

tumn 2011, Vol.1 .p7

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Georgian Political Parties and Online Social Network: Politics as usual? 

109

This study examined political parties’ activities on Facebook prior to the 

electoral campaigns in 2012. It found that almost all political parties that 

participated in the survey clearly intended to present their programmes to a 

wider audience with the help of social media and social networks. Observations 

also showed that the level of political party leaders’ activity on Facebook was 

quite high and that they followed similar communication strategies. It was 

evident that Georgian political parties preferred to promote the personalities of 

leaders rather than their respective programmes, ideologies, or policy 

alternatives. These leaders had opened personal Facebook accounts, with which 

they actively led campaigns on behalf of their political parties, suggesting that 

politics is highly personalised in Georgia. 

Similar trends in established parliamentary democracies, as well as former 

post-communist states, are described in the academic literature.

16

 These studies 

find that the character and style of election campaigning, the presentation and 

promotion of policies, and the executive authority of the head of state have all 

changed markedly from the situation in the 1950s and 1960s.

17

 The causes of the 

emergence of the phenomenon of personalisation are numerous and complex; 

therefore, this is not a subject of the current research. This paper only examines 

whether Georgian political parties managed to efficiently promote party policies 

through their leaders prior to the 2012 parliamentary election campaign. 

The most well-known leaders on the political scene, Saakashvili (United 

National Movement) and his main political opponent, Ivanishvili (coalition 

Georgian Dream), both had active and well-maintained Facebook accounts: the 

content was regularly updated, campaign tours were extensively covered, and 

photo materials were provided. Other political actors, such as Alasania (leader 

of the Free Democrats), Usupashvili (leader of the Republican Party), 

Gamrkrelidze (New Rights Party), Gubaz Sanikidze (National Forum),and 

Zviad Dzidziguri (Conservative Party), also had more or less active Facebook 

accounts. Monitoring of these sites showed that parties with youth-dominated 

governing bodies appeared to be more aware of the advantages of social media 

and more motivated to overcome the negative consequences of limited access to 

traditional media sources. Parties governed by older-generation leaders lacked 

16

 McAllister, I. 1996. Leaders. In Comparing Democracies: Elections and Voting in 

Global Perspective, eds. L. LeDuc, R. Niemi, and P. Norris. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

17

 McAllister, I. 2007. The personalization of politics. In R. Dalton, & H. Klingemann 

(Eds.), Oxford handbook of political behavior. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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