Georgia: Parliamentary Election Update

The BBC reports that the Georgian president Mikhail Saaksashvili is “confident of victory for his ruling party” in yesterday’s parliamentary election. Official results in so far suggest that the ruling United National Movement party won 63 percent of the vote while the opposition received only 13 percent. The results are largely in line with exit polls.

Of course, this being the South Caucasus where governments rarely if ever lose power in an election, and where the opposition appears unwilling to admit defeat even in the arguably unlikely event of a truly fair vote, a rally was staged in Tbilisi protesting the outcome even before final results have been announced.

The Georgian opposition threatened to rally “tens of thousands,” but as was the case during last year’s parliamentary election in Armenia, only several hundred turned up. Still, there were obviously other more pressing matters on their minds.

“There was total falsification, especially in the regions,” said Georgy Gamkrelidze, a leader of the United Opposition Council.

“According to our data, the picture is totally different,” he told Associated Press news agency.

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Protesters then watched live coverage of the Champions League final in Moscow between English teams Manchester United and Chelsea.

EurasiaNet covers the vote and seems to be taking a very lenient line on proceedings so far. Indeed, it also makes the point that, as was the case in Armenia for the 2007 parliamentary and 2008 presidential election, the opposition had planned its protests even before the polls closed.

According to early exit polls run by a coalition of think tanks and universities for Georgian television stations, the governing party looked set to retain a commanding majority in parliament. According to the available data, the National Movement captured roughly 63 percent of the vote. The main opposition coalition challenging the governing party received an estimated 14 percent. Opposition leaders dismissed the findings, characterizing the exit polling results, which were based on interviews with 6,000 voters, government-backed charade. Preliminary official election results are expected early May 22.

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During a news conference at his New Rights Party headquarters in Tbilisi, Gamkrelidze alleged that opposition supporters had been assaulted throughout the regions. A leading politician in the UOM, Koba Davitashvili, was allegedly attacked in the western city of Zugdidi. However, the International Society for Free and Fair Elections, which had observers in Zugdidi, could not confirm the report. Television footage only showed a yelling incident between Davitashvili and an unidentified man, whom the political leader pushed out of a polling station.

Gamkrelidze also claimed an opposition supporter was shot and killed near a voting station in the western region of Samegrelo, although the Central Election Commission ardently denied any connection between the election and the shooting.

Gamkrelidze, who has emerged as the United Opposition’s regular spokesperson, claimed more than 100 violations had been reported to opposition representatives by 2 pm on May 21. He went on to call for the voting results in 12 precincts to be annulled. “The main problem today for this election is the terror from the side of the ruling party,” Gamkrelidze said in response to a question from EurasiaNet.

Not waiting for the preliminary results to be announced, UOM leaders announced that they would hold a rally in front of the Central Election Commission at 11pm local time to “prevent fraud.”

Nevertheless, Civil Georgia reports that local election watchdogs report that there were cases of intimidation recorded of their own observers.

The joint statement issued by International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) and Transparency International–Georgia (TI-Georgia) gives statistic of cases of pressure on their observers reported before the polls were closed at 8pm local time on May 21.

It says that cases of intimidation and pressure on ISFED observers were observed at 14 polling stations and in 9 cases its observers were denied to file complaints to the precinct election commissions.

TI-Georgia, which had its observers in the Shida Kartli region, reported 12 cases of pressure and intimidation on its observers. It also said that its observers were denied to file complaints at 21 polling stations.

GYLA said there have been 14 cases of intimidation of its observers, including expulsion from the polling stations during the election day. It also said that there had been four cases when its observers were denied to file complaints.

The same online publication also reports that the vote was annulled in 13 polling stations because of violations which included ballot-stuffing and other irregularities. The vote is also expected to be annulled in at least nine other precincts.

Civil Georgia reports that the CEC says voter turnout was 55 percent (1,905,960 voters) in the election for the 150-seat legislature. Although not taken seriously these days, it remains to be seen what international observers conclude about the conduct of the election.