Police investigate car bomb attack, opposition relates incident to elections
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Georgian police are investigating an incident during which a car belonging to an NGO member exploded as the owner was leaving the election headquarters of one of the candidates late last night.
Two people were inside the car when the incident happened – Makhare Sisauri and Ramaz Gvaladze, both of which are members of the non-governmental organization Former Political Prisoners for Human Rights.
The car was driving from Tianeti to Tbilisi at about 1 am when another car coming from the opposite direction gave the driver a sign to pull over. When the driver did so, allegedly passengers from the other car threw a molotov cocktail.
The car completely burnt down after both Sisauri and Gvaladze managed to get out of the vehicle. No one was injured during the incident.
Chair of the Former Political Prisoners for Human Rights Nana Kakabadze says that the incident was most likely connected with the election.
Sisauri and Gvaladze were attacked when they were leaving the office of the opposition political party Tamaz Mechiauri for United Georgia and Tamaz Mechiauri himself was supposed to be in the car but he changed his mind in the last minute.
Mechiauri ran in Saturday’s elections as a mayoral candidate for Tianeti, a town in east-central Georgia. The preliminary results from the Central Election Commission said that Mechiauri defeated his opponent, the ruling Georgian Dream party’s candidate Lela Kitesashvili with a single vote. Later, the votes were re-counted based on an appeal and was announced that now Kitesashvili was one vote ahead of Mechuarui.
Mechiauri believes that the process of the vote count was unfair and his opponent was given votes that actually belonged to Mechiauri. The representatives from the Former Political Prisoners for Human Rights had been at Mechiauri’s office last night to discuss this alleged election violation.
- Municipal Elections 2017: See Agenda.ge's special election page
Meanwhile today another NGO, the Georgian Young Lawyers Association (GYLA), announced that election procedures seem to have been violated in Tianeti and there were even signs of criminal offence.
With the help from the GYLA, Mechiauri filed an appeal to Mtskheta City Court today and asked the decision that allowed the vote recount to be annulled.