Political corruption – such as vote buying or the financing of political campaigns by individuals or pressure groups who, after the politician has won the election, hope for decisions in their favaor – has a major impact on the quality of democracy. Instead of serving the public, politicians may divert public resources in a way so that they benefit of the individuals who made large contributions to their campaings.

One effective to fight political corruption is to ensure transparency of the financing of parties and election campaigns. Therefore, we took a look at the donations that were reported by 14 political entities since the 2012 parliamentary elections up to including September 2013.

Between October 2012 and the end of September 2013, the United National Movement received very few donations, amounting to only 16,800 GEL (see Figure 1.). The party's donations thus declined to only 0.15% of what it had received the year before  – more than GEL 11 million ahead of the parliamentary elections in 2012, which was more than 3.5 times the amount the Georgian Dream Coalition had reported (GEL 3,358,702 GEL that year).

The United National Movement was only the 9th strongest fundraiser since the 2012 elections, judging by its reported donations. The first three positions in terms of (reported) funds raised are held by member parties of the Coalition Georgian Dream, the Democratic Movement – United Georgia and the Christian-Democratic Movement (CDM).

The Georgian Dream coalition, as shown by Figure 3; the political party Georgian Dream – Democratic Georgia received the largest portion of donations (GEL 3,743,045) within the Coalition in the reporting period. It significantly leads also in terms of the number of donors[3] (Figure 5).

We also established the dynamics of donations to three largest parties (Coalition Georgian Dream, Democratic Movement, Christian-Democratic Movement) by time period when the donations were made and reported to the State Audit Office. It appears that the donations to the Christian-Democratic Movement were made entirely in the first reporting period (10/2012 to 04/2013).

As with the Coalition Georgian Dream and the party Democratic Movement – United Georgia, in both cases, the donated funds were large in the first reporting period, declining in the following reporting period, and rising again in the following period. Moreover, the donations to the Democratic Movement – United Georgia peaked in September 2013, with GEL 513,335. This is approximately 12 times the cumulative amount of donations made to the party before October 2012. Such difference possibly can be explained by the fact that the party was not participating in the parliamentary elections.

Together with the overview of overall statistics, we found several individual donations that are worth highlighting: 

• In October 2012, Giorgi Targamadze donated GEL 60,000 GEL to his own party, the Christian-Democratic Movement. The same month, other leaders of the party also contributed: Levan Vepkhvadze and Giorgi Akhvlediani each donated GEL 20,000 GEL and Magdalina Anikashvili gave GEL 19,986;
• In November 2012, Levan Berdzenishvili donated GEL 4,000 to the Republican Party, Member of Parliament (MP) Nodar Ebanoidze donated GEL 10,000 and Davit Razmadze, chairman of the Gori Local Council (Sakrebulo) donated GEL 15,000;
• Jondi Bagaturia made several donations with an accumulate value of GEL 3,775 to his own party, the Georgian Group – he was its only donor in the period of October 2012 to September 2013;
• Teo Tlashadze, a former MP and now chairperson of Mixed Families for Solidarity, donated GEL 5,020 to the Georgian Party;
• In November 2012, MP Zurab Tkemaladze, donated GEL 10,000 GEL to the party Industry will Save Georgia;
• Giorgi Gachechiladze, MP and Secretary General of the Green Party of Georgia, made a single donation of GEL 588 to his own party;
• In September, Zurab Kharatishvili, former chairman of the Central Election Commission and presidential candidate, donated GEL 40,000 GEL to the European Democrats of Georgia as the only donor in this reporting period;
• In June, Tamaz Tamazasvhili, father-in-law of Irakli Garibashvili, the current Minister of Internal Affairs, made a non-monetary donation, worth GEL 3,000 GEL to the Georgian Dream; Tea Tsulukiani, Minister of Justice, donated GEL 10,000 GEL to the Georgian Dream – Democratic Georgia in the the same month.

Tengiz Gvazava, Director General of the company Elita Burji donated GEL 50,000 GEL to the Georgian Dream. The direct owner company of Elita Burji is Ringold Finance, a British Virgin Islands shell company, which, through its subsidiary Horizonti, also owns a part of the land plot where Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili's business center in Tbilisi is located. We thus assume that Ivanishvili is the beneficiary owner of Elita Burji.  

Gvazava's donation per se is not problematic. What is problematic is that in 2013, Elita Burji received several contracts from the Ministry of Internal Affairs for delivering furniture worth GEL 84,439. These contracts were not awarded through a competitive process but directly given to the company under simplified procurement procedures.

To better understand which companies or organizations contribute to political parties, have identified which entities individual donors hold official positions in (such as shareholder, director, legal representative):