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.
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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.
Georgian Interior Minister Giorgi Gakharia, who has cast his ballot at Mtatsminda polling station No. 5 in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, said law enforcers will ensure that today’s by-elections are held in a democratic and free environment.
Georgian Public Defender Nino Lomjaria has recently stated that she is “actively following” pre-election developments in Georgia and is concerned by the “extremely tense situation” in Zugdidi, the country’s west.
Central Election Commission has reported violations at several election stations. Spokeswoman Ana Mikeladze said observers and members of political party have taken voters’ ID cards and wrote down their data, which is a violation.
The leader of the parliamentary majority Archil Talakvadze presented an audio recording of “the closest circle” of former President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili and his wife Sandra Roelofs, now running in the by-elections for Zugdidi mayor, at a special briefing several minutes ago.
The International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), one of the leading NGOs in Georgia, says that its observers have been allowed in and faced no restrictions to monitor the election process at almost all polling stations in today’s by-elections in Tbilisi and the regions.
A total of 67,217 people have cast their ballots in today’s by-elections four hours since the polling stations opened, announces the Central Election Commission.
27,256 voters, accounting for 6.8 percent of the total number of voters, cast their ballots in today’s by-elections by 10 a.m., two hours after the polling stations opened in Georgia, the Central Election Commission (CEC) announced.
Georgia is going to the polls today to elect a member of parliament, five mayors and members of eight city councils (Sakrebulo) across the country. Polls opened at 8 a.m. this morning for 402,091 eligible voters at 410 polling stations.