Parliament Speaker alleges USAID was aware of “false data” in NGO vote count during 2020 Elections

Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Tuesday alleged the United States Agency for International Development had known about the “false data” of the parallel vote count released by the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy during Georgia’s 2020 Parliamentary Elections and had chosen to “hide” the fact from Georgian citizens.

“It is a fact that false data of the parallel vote count was being released [following the Elections], it is a fact that the USAID knew and hid it from Georgian citizens - I have been waiting for an answer [for the alleged decision] for a long time and I will definitely receive it”, Papuashvili said.

In the 2020 Elections, the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy released results of a false parallel vote count. The head of ISFED said she soon informed the USAID office that the data was not correct. The USAID representative knew at least a month before it became public to the Georgian citizens that the results of the parallel vote count were false, and no-one told Georgian citizens”, the official alleged.

In December 2020, the ISFED admitted to an error in its data of the parallel vote count, which had been used by domestic opposition parties as evidence that the results of the October 31 Parliamentary Elections were “fabricated” by the ruling Georgian Dream party and the Central Election Commission. 

In his comments Papuashvili also urged the USAID to respond to allegations by the country’s State Security Service, which said the Agency’s East-West Management Institute had funded trainings in Tbilisi in September for “causing unrest” in the country this fall.