By-elections 2019: opposition claims violations, ruling party says elections peaceful

26,933 voters cast their ballots in today’s by-elections by 10 a.m. Photo: Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge. 

Agenda.ge, 19 May 2019 - 12:00, Tbilisi,Georgia

Four hours have passed since the opening of polling stations in Georgia and the opposition  has already claimed that violations at various polling stations have taken place, while the ruling party claims the elections are underway in a peaceful environment and without violations.

United opposition (UNM and 10 opposition parties) representative Levan Bezhashvili said that the major violations are related to the illegal distribution of voters' lists, people without accreditation at the polling stations and voter bribing.

There was chaos at a number of polling stations. In fact, we are dealing with discredited district election commission and therefore the districts do not have specific instructions on what to do with specific violations”, said Bezhashvili.

Head of the Georgian Dream election headquarters in Zugdidi Irakli Chikovani said that the ruling party is winning the elections and violations have not occurred at any of the polling stations.

Chikovani responded to the allegations related to the voters’ lists and said that this is a list of the Georgian Dream’s supporters.

I am holding now this list, which is a list of our supporters of a specific polling station. Here are the data about them but none of it is personal data. Accordingly, there is no violation related to these lists. This is a practice used in many countries and we use this practice in order to organise elections”, said Chikovani.

He stated that none of the violations have been observed by Georgian Dream activists in this election process.