Ombudsman, local NGOs hail voting mostly calm and transparent

NGOs and the public defender stated grave election violations were little. Photo by N.Alavidze/Agenda.ge.
Agenda.ge, 22 Oct 2017 - 01:10, Tbilisi,Georgia

Georgia’s Public Defender Ucha Nanuashvili and several leading NGOs have already released their assessments of the Election Day. 

Nanuashvili. International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), Transparency International Georgia (TI) and the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) mainly spoke about procedural violations. 

They stated the level of some serious election violations was low. 

Nanuashvili stated the voting process was mostly calm and transparent, but he was concerned by presence of some party supporters at election districts, writing down the names of those appearing to vote. 

The ombudsman believed the fact could be an indirect pressure on voters and appealed to the Central Election Commission to take measures against. 

The Transparency International Georgia, which also assessed the elections as calm, stated that there were facts when different party observers tried to identify voters through their list numbers. 

NGOs say that election commissions need to be better prepared. Photo by N.Alavidze/Agenda.ge. 

They [the observers] disturbed those registering voters, tried to understand the list number of certain voters and then compared the list number to the voters’ lists on the wall. They were likely to match the data to identify voters, which could be used to somehow pressure the voters,” the organization said. 

The International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy said the elections were without major violations, stating that the most problematic was the Marneuli election district. 

The NGO says 98percent of election districts ensured complete conspiracy of the voting process and alleged fact of menace and pressure was mentioned in only one percent of election districts. 

The Georgian Young Lawyers Association reported elections were mostly calm and announced they wrote complaints about the violation of observers’ rights, problems over voters’ lists, violation of the voting conspiracy and assembling of party supporters at election districts.