Watchdog NGO Claims Rustavi By-Elections Invalid

(Tbilisi, Civil Georgia, December 4, 2002) – The elections watchdog NGO International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), which observed the MP by-election in Georgia’s Rustavi provincial constituency claims that the elections should be announced as invalid due to insufficient voters’ turnout.  

The Rustavi District Election Commission says that 36% of voters participated in the by-election, thus there is no reason for announcing the election invalid. While the ISFED claims only 12% of voters participated in the ballot.

MP by-elections were held in Georgia’s four constituencies on November 30. According to the Central Elections Commission in Tbilisi’s Saburtalo district and in Rustavi by-elections were declared invalid as less than one-third of all registered voters cast their ballots.

But opposition National Movement candidate Givi Targamadze, who contested the ballot in Saburtalo, disputed that figure and claimed the poll was valid.

In Samtredia, as well as in Abasha provincial constituencies pro-governmental Citizens’ Union of Georgia party candidates won the by-elections.

Observers from the ISFED say voters’ lists in all four constituencies contained so many errors that it will be impossible to preclude fraud in the parliamentary elections due in 2003 unless they are corrected.

Ghia Nodia of the leading think-tank Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development said at the news briefing on December 4 that the massive frauds in the elections undermines voters’ trust towards the fair and democratic elections.

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