Ruling party Executive Secretary: electoral fraud allegations “unfounded”, insulting to public”

Mamuka Mdinaradze, the Executive Secretary of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Wednesday dismissed the domestic opposition’s allegations of alleged fraud in Saturday’s parliamentary elections as “unfounded”, “insulting to voters” and accused them of “attempting to deceive the public”. 

In his comments at the party office, Mdinaradze  stressed “no matter how much we improve, no matter how much we conduct electronic elections, they have already gone to [direct] such a great insult to Georgian society”. 

Mdinaradze’s criticism particularly targeted allegations that claimed up to 300,000 votes had been “falsified” in the elections, in which, for the first time in the country’s history, about 90 percent of voters cast their ballots electronically. 

In his comments, the official criticised the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy, a domestic electoral watchdog which refused to provide details of its electoral findings due to alleged violations it claimed could have influenced the results. 

Although the ISFED’s preliminary statement acknowledged their parallel vote tabulation data aligned with that of the Central Election Commission, Mdinaradze noted the organisation has yet to release its full report. 

It has been four days since the end of the very transparent elections, yet the ISFED has not published their data in detail”, Mdinaradze said, pointing to alleged goals of the “foreign-influenced radical domestic opposition” to “question the election integrity”. 

He also reminded the public that the ISFED’s “fake” PVT results in the 2020 parliamentary elections had been “used” by the opposition to “artificially spark the post-election unrest”. 

The official also dismissed the opposition’s claims on alleged manipulation with identification documents and repeat voting as “misleading” and “baseless”. 

Reflecting on the high voter turnout, Mdinaradze noted “unprecedented queues” had been seen at polling stations and accused the opposition of “belittling this participation by alleging the vote was fabricated”.

The GD has won by approximately 890,800 votes - this is not just a margin of one, two, ten, twenty, or even one hundred votes. It’s a significant difference of 890,800 votes”, he said.

“How many votes does it take to recognise that something is fundamentally wrong? I urge the opposition to refrain from spreading such deceitful fakes to the Georgian public and to respect their intelligence”, the party official stressed. 

Mdinaradze also labelled comments from the United States Helsinki Commission - which called it “disgraceful” for President Joe Biden’s administration to “legitimise” what it termed as an "authoritarian takeover" of Georgia by the GD - as “tendentious, outrageous, and insulting to both Georgian society and the state”. 

Mdinaradze also described the Commission's remarks as “undermining the legitimacy” of the Georgian elections. 

The MP further argued while the Commission had claimed the results did not reflect the will of the Georgian people, they “failed to present any clear evidence to substantiate this claim”. 

If the [domestic] civil society groups and observers provided evidence to the Helsinki Commission, why have they not shared it with the Georgian public?” he asked, emphasising the need for transparency.

The MP continued, “these allegations should be presented to the Prosecutor’s Office or made public, otherwise, it will be evident that the Helsinki Commission is spreading falsehoods”. 

Mdinaradze claimed the ongoing scrutiny of the election process would “not wane”, before pledging “we will pursue this issue to the end, even if the opposing parties declare the elections were conducted fairly”.