CEC Details Reason for Rejecting Republicans’ Registration

At a news conference on August 5 Chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC) Gia Kavtaradze dismissed allegations of the opposition Republican Party as “groundless” and justified the CEC’s decision to reject the party’s registration by noting formal legal inaccuracies in the Republican Party’s application.

Republican Party Leader Davit Usupashvili said on August 5 that the party will not participate in the upcoming MP by-elections for five majoritarian (single-mandate constituenc) seats, because of the obstacles the CEC is creating for the party.

The chairman of the CEC said that according to the law, a political party willing to undergo registration and participate in the elections has to submit a number of documents, including “the name of the party’s representative in the CEC and indicate the exact authority assigned to said representative.”

“In the registration form submitted to the CEC on August 2 the Republican Party named Zurab Marakvelidze as its representative to the CEC, but did not indicate his authorities. After that, we informed the Republican Party to make its representative’s authority clear and now the party has two more days to re-register,” Chairman Kavtaradze said.

He also said that a similar case occurred with another opposition party, the Conservatives. “But after we informed them to specify their representative’s authority, they did so without making any noise,” Gia Kavtaradze said.

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