"Trasperancy International" - From 1 August until 19 November Salome Zurabishvili received GEL 8,998,948 and Grigol Vashadze - GEL 1,243,366 in donations

From 1 August until 19 November, the donations received by the two main entities amounted to GEL 11,343,062, including GEL 8,998,948 (79.3 percent) received by Salome Zurabishvili and GEL 1,243,366 (11.6 percent) - by Grigol Vashadze, - it is said in the intrim report of the "Trasperancy International - Georgia."As for the period following the first round, from 28 October until 19 November, the two main electoral entities received the total of GEL 4,128,323 in donations, including GEL 3,592,724 (87 percent) received by Salome Zurabishvili and GEL 535,599 (13 percent) received by Grigol Vashadze;Out of 621 persons who made donations to Salome Zurabishvili, 157 previously made donations to other political parties as well. Among them, 137 physical persons made donations to Georgian Dream in the past. They donated the total of GEL 1,750,00 to Salome Zurabishvili, which amounts to 22 percent of the total donations. Previously, the same people donated about GEL 5,801,088 to Georgian Dream. In addition, 15 of Zurabishvili’s donors made donations amounting to the total of GEL 795,00 to the United National Movement in 2012."After the first round of the presidential elections, several informal social movements have appeared and held various public political events. Among them are “I Defend Freedom”, “No to Misha, No to Nazis” [“Nazis” here refer to the members of the United National Movement – translator’s note], “No to Nazism” and others. The actions of these group clearly include campaigning in favour of one presidential candidate and against the other, and this is likely to involve some expenses;In addition to expressing verbal support to Salome Zurabishvili, Georgian Dream posted sponsored campaign ads of Salome Zurabishvili on the party’s official Facebook page, which should be considered an illegal donation made by Georgian Dream to this candidate;Another party – the Alliance of Patriots of Georgia – also spent financial resources to benefit Salome Zurabishvili and against Grigol Vashadze. In early November, this party started printing and distributing campaign materials with the main goal of discrediting Grigol Vashadze’s candidacy and supporting Salome Zurabishvili. Furthermore, the Alliance of Patriots of Georgia organized large-scale campaign rallies in Batumi and Tbilisi with the same purpose. A stage, microphones, campaign posters and other means were used during these meetings. The party also provided for participants’ transportation. Therefore, the Alliance of Patriots of Georgia spent financial and material resources for the benefit of Salome Zurabishvili, which must be considered an illegal donation;Similar to the first round, the response by the State Audit Office to alleged violations of political party financing regulations was mostly ineffective. The process of verifying the cases was protracted and produced no results at the end. As late as on 26 November, the Audit Office published a brief report which included information about the response to several violations. We hope that the process of investigating the cases will be speeded up and decisions will be made more promptly," the organization statement reads.