Opposition Plans Rally on January 6
A politician from the nine-party opposition coalition said they would hold a rally on January 6 to announce the results of their parallel vote tabulation (PVT).
“At the rally we will let supporters know about the results of our parallel vote tabulation,” MP Kakha Kukava, the leader of the Conservative Party, told Civil.Ge on January 2. “The results of parallel vote tabulation will be based on data provided by the opposition coalition’s representatives at the precinct commissions.”
Two election watchdog groups – International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) and New Generation-New Initiative (nGnI) – are also planning to conduct separate PVT, which entails counting votes simultaneously with officials from precinct election commissions.
In addition to PVT, exit polls are also planned by four television stations – the Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB), Rustavi 2 TV, Mze TV and Adjara TV. They are to be managed by the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA), Ilia Chavchavadze State University and two think-tanks – the Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development (CIPDD) and the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS.
The opposition, however, has already snubbed the planned exit polls, claiming the organizations behind it have close links to the authorities.
Separate exit polls are also planned by Common European Cause. The only information available about this group is that it is apparently a Ukraine-based organization. Representatives of the organization are even refusing to name their local partners, or those who have commissioned them.
Kukava told Civil.Ge that he had no information about this organization, but added that he and some of his colleagues from the nine-party opposition coalition planned to meet representatives of the group on January 3. “Today we met a group of Ukrainian journalist who arrived in Georgia with this group [Common European Cause], and tomorrow we will meet with representatives of this group,” Kukava said.
