Ruling party Executive Secretary: OSCE/ODIHR report refutes opposition's claims of election fraud

Mamuka Mdinaradze, the Executive Secretary of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Monday claimed the final report by the Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights on Georgia’s October general elections did not support domestic opposition’s claims of electoral fraud. 

In his press comments, Mdinaradze emphasised the findings released last week did not reflect “any of the opposition’s accusations, particularly the claim of 300,000 falsified votes”.

“We can freely say that we have seen much more serious conclusions. In this case, they will not touch on the issues that our opposition was speculating about”, Mdinaradze said. 

He added the opposition’s allegations of 300,000 falsified votes had not been addressed in the report. “Not only 300,000, but even 300 falsified votes were not mentioned there”, the MP claimed.

The official further alleged the opposition had “already shown inconsistency” in their response to the report.

[The opposition] cannot use it for any speculation because [this is] practically the same conclusion, which was in the first interim, preliminary [report]. They described it very badly and fought against this conclusion, and now they seem to be happy with what was presented by the OSCE/ODIHR in a similar, slightly more extensive form”, Mdinaradze said. 

He alleged “contradictions” in the opposition's approach, particularly their “shift in tone from condemning the initial findings to praising the final report”.

Mdinaradze further highlighted “in all cases, we can say that none of the questions and speculations that were voiced by our opposition were reflected in the OSCE/ODIHR conclusion as a point”. 

He also referred to earlier comments by Shalva Papuashvili, the Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, who had pointed out critical aspects of the findings. 

A few days ago, Shalva Papuashvili voiced several points of the very serious OSCE/ODIHR conclusion, which ultimately turned out to concern the [presidential] elections held in the United States [last month]”, Mdinaradze noted.

The lawmaker also said the opposition “simply do not look for what is written, but rather focus on how they will PR it”.