Bidzina’s Report Card

The FINANCIAL — Now that the parliamentary election dust has settled, and a whole new round of presidential election dust has been kicked up, we pollsters have begun to look at Georgian attitudes and expectations for the next political moment in Georgia. 

Some important attitudes to track, and attitudes that will have a great effect on coming voting behavior, are job satisfaction rates.  This week we will discuss how satisfied Georgians are with their new Prime Minister, both generally and specifically.  Additionally, we will compare these satisfaction rates to the president’sin the past.

Georgian Opinion Research Business International has just completed our most recent quarterly omnibus survey this week, and we have included a number of political attitude questions about the Prime Minister, President, and coming elections.  In order to discuss Ivanishvili’s job performance ratings, and to compare them with Saakashvili’s, we asked respondents how well each man has managed a variety of issues. 
For each, we’ve subtracted the percentage of respondents who said the issue had been managed poorly from those who said it had been managed well.  A positive result shows that more Georgians appreciate the job that’s been done than not, and a negative result represents dissatisfaction.  With these numbers, we can attempt to describe Georgians’ assessment of their new Prime Minister.

The first thing that you need to know about Ivanishvili’s new report card is that it’s largely incomplete; for each of the areas of evaluation, somewhere between 38% and 47% of respondents gave no answer.  Compare this to Saakashvili’s last grades, where we find nonresponse rates between 10% and 20% and it becomes obvious that Georgians are still unsure about the qualifications of their new Prime Minister. After all, Bidzina’s time in office can be measured in weeks compared to nearly a decade of familiarity with the President.

Even if we disregard the nonresponses for the time being, we can find that the public still has a generally positive opinion of Ivanishvili.  More respondents felt that Ivanishvili has managed each of the issues well than poorly.  However, given the high non-response rates, few of the “grades” are very high.  His two highest marks are for fighting corruption, for which he received a +26, and ensuring fair elections (+23).  He also received good scores for settling relations with Russia (+22), domestic and foreign policy (+20, +19), and human rights protection (+18).

Respondents were not as confident in his ability to return Georgia’s borders to their early 90s’ shape, attracting investments, or various economic concerns.  However, the “grades” still remain positive for each of these categories. 

The Old Report Card — If we compare these scores to Misha’s last ratings (in August), we find some areas where Georgians are happier with Ivanishvili, and some where Saakashvili’s scores are shoes that are still a bit too big to fill.

While Bidzina’sfight against corruption is so far regarded as his most well-fought, Misha’s rating for the same was significantly higher in August.  Likewise, the Prime Minister’s foreign policy received a positive review, but not nearly as high as the President’s.  Other grades were similar for each man, including domestic policy, economic reform, and human rights protection (remember, Misha’s score was given before the recent prison scandal).  Perhaps the only issue that clearly shows a public preference for Bidzina, rather than a preference for “not-Misha,” is in settling relations with Russia: Bidzina is clearly regarded as capable in this area, and Misha is clearly not.

Finally, regardless of how their individual job assessments might compare, the most important grade any public official receives is electoral.  For a hint at what the voters’ final grade may be, we can simply ask them about their intentions.  In this field, Bidzina Ivanishvili is the clear frontrunner.  We asked each respondent who would receive their parliamentary vote if elections were held tomorrow: 41% said Georgian Dream (Ivanishvili’s party), while Misha’s UNM received a mere 7% of the hypothetical votes.  It seems that, while Georgians have not yet given Mr. Ivanishvili their clear stamp of approval, the stamp previously given to Mr. Saakashvili and the UNM has begun to fade.

This poll included 1000 Georgians and has a margin of error of approximately 3% with 95% confidence.