TI Georgia: violations could have ‘seriously impacted’ election results

Transparency International (TI) Georgia, which monitored the October 30 municipal run-offs, says that the public may have ‘legitimate questions’ regarding the ‘overall fairness of the elections.’

TI Georgia claims that violations, including physical confrontations, interference in the work of observers and journalists, and the admittance of voters to polling stations without checking electoral ink stamps, might have had a ‘serious impact’ on election results.

• Agenda.ge interactive map for the 2021 election results

The organisation filed 23 complaints and reported about 150 violations over the course of election day.

TI Georgia recommends the Central Election Commission (CEC) to issue clearer guidelines on when to recognize ballots as invalid, and law enforcement officials to investigate alleged criminal violations.

The official results of the October 30 municipal election run-offs in Georgia show that ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party mayoral candidates won in 19 municipalities, while the opposition United National Movement (UNM) contender has won in just one.

A total of 1,024,406 voters out of 2,088,722 cast their ballots in Georgia’s local self-government election run-offs, which amounted to 49.9% of eligible voters, the CEC reports.

An interactive map put together by the Agenda.ge team shows the results of the 2021 municipal election run-offs, displaying voter turnout and other various figures, per region and city.