Under the directives of the “Georgian Dream” party, posts supporting the “Russian Law” are systematically shared by employees of 59 municipalities’ Mayor’s offices, City Councils, and N(N)LEs. The scheme of disseminating misinformation and lies by the “Georgian Dream” party is as follows: initially, the post is shared by the party’s central office or Dimitri Samkharadze, MP from the “Georgian Dream.” This is swiftly re-shared by Mayors and State Representatives across various regions. Subsequently, it is further circulated on social media by other administrative personnel and N(N)LE employees.
According to our research, posts supporting the "Russian Law" are systematically shared by 320 employees of 59 municipalities.
Currently, there are at least 20,000 individuals employed in the municipalities and self-governing cities of Georgia, and our observations indicate that the ruling party is attempting to fully leverage this workforce. One such instance is evidenced by screenshots of the internal chat of Ambrolauri City Hall, which were provided to us by a source.
In this chat, Gigi Natmeladze, an advisor to the Ambrolauri Mayor, encourages employees to actively engage and provides directives on the type of comments they should post
Screenshots of the Chat
We attempted to reach Gigi Natmeladze via WhatsApp. When questioned about the instructions being sent in the chat, he refuted our claims. Further inquiry regarding the source of the messages and the use of his number resulted in a sudden disconnection of the call. Subsequent attempts to contact him via phone calls and email, where we included the screenshots in question, went unanswered.
Facebook has deemed three visual materials distributed by the “Georgian Dream” party on April 6th and 7th as misinformation, leading to the removal of the posts. Facebook collaborates with independent fact-checkers in Georgia and bases its decisions on their reports.
Nevertheless, the ruling party persists in its efforts to disseminate new banners and videos.
