Early Official Results Delayed
The Central Election Commission (CEC) will start posting vote tallies from about 100 polling stations on its website from about 4am on Sunday, CEC Chairman Levan Tarkhnishvili said at a news conference held at 2:30am.
He said the delay in announcing first early official results was caused by several factors, namely “severe weather conditions and snow,” the extra workload because of the plebiscites and complications caused by the new composition of precinct election commissions.
“You know that along with non-partisan precinct election commission members, there are members who were appointed by the political parties, which often is the cause of disagreement and delayed decision-making,” the CEC chairman explained. “But this is also part of democracy.”
Tarkhnishvili said that vote tallies from only about 100 polling stations were available. “We need some time to analyze these data and we think that we will be able to post this information on the website in about an hour,” he said.
MP Kakha Kukava of the Conservative Party, part of the nine-party opposition coalition which backs Levan Gachechiladze’s presidential bid, however, challenged Tarkhnishvili’s explanation. Kukava demanded that the CEC chairman present copies of vote tallies received, as claimed by Tarkhnishvili, from the 100 polling stations.
“This is not the place for political statements; this is a press conference…” Tarkhnishvili responded. Kukava, however, interrupted the CEC chairman again, saying he suspected no vote tallied had in fact been received by the CEC.
Kukava then went to the CEC.HQ, where he told reporters he would wait for copies of the vote tallies the CEC claimed to have received. Later, Kukava said at another press conference that he had been shown the copies, but he still insisted that the authorities were trying to manipulate the election results, especially in Tbilisi.
Meanwhile, early official results are, according to the CEC chairman, expected to be released at a news conference at 9am on Sunday.
