UNM party chair election underway for second day

Elections for the chairmanship of the opposition United National Movement party are underway for the second day by electronic voting.

Four candidates are running for the chairmanship - the current incumbent chair of the party, Nika Melia and other party members Levan Khabeishvili, Giorgi Mumladze and Nona Mamulashvili.

Nino Kvitaishvili, a member of the election commission created by the UNM party, responded to the statement of Levan Khabeishvili’s representative Lasha Parulava, claiming earlier today that Khabeishvili’s more than 21,000 supporters had already voted for him. As Kvitaishvili explained, this was “an attempt to mislead the public”, because it was impossible to know “who voted for whom” or “which voters already took part or did not”.     

Parulava also noted that “thousands of voters” were not able to complete the voting process as there was a delay in the verification process, to which Kvitaishvili responded that the commission would discuss the issue later today, expressing hope the problem would be fixed in time and would not to affect results of the elections.

The voting ends on Monday and the results will be announced later the same day.