Results from Only 105 Precincts Available So Far

CEC started to post vote tallies from polling stations on its website about five hours ago and by 9:30am data from only 105 out of total 3,512 polling stations were posted.

These are vote tallies from some precincts in Tbilisi, Batumi, Rustavi, Sagarejo, Marneuli, Borjomi, Akhaltsikhe, Zugdidi and Upper Abkhazia (upper Kodori Gorge in breakaway Abkhazia).

Data from these 105 precincts show that incumbent candidate Mikheil Saakashvili is in lead, followed by Levan Gachechiladze. Data includes about only 30 precincts from Tbilisi; in most of them Gachechiladze is leading; however, Saakashvili takes convincing lead in data coming from polling stations from Zugdidi, a town at the breakaway Abkhaz border and from Marneuli in Kvemo Kartli region, which is predominately populated by ethnic Azerbaijanis. With data available from 15 precincts of Batumi, Saakashvili has 37.2% and Gachechiladze up to 34.4%. There are total of 75 precincts in Batumi.

Meanwhile, the opposition nine-party coalition, backing Levan Gachechiladze’s presidential bid, has already alleged that CEC was deliberately dragging out releasing vote tallies. “The fact that information from only about 100 polling stations is available triggers doubt that there is someone trying to fix the figures,” Tina Khidasheli of the Republican Party, part of the opposition coalition, said.

Chairman of the CEC, Levan Tarkhnishvili, however, said that delay was triggered by several factors, and named “heavy weather conditions and snow” among them. He also said that counting of votes was a burdensome work, because along with presidential elections two separate plebiscites were also held. Tarkhnishvili also said that composition of precinct election commissions was yet another reason of delay.

“You know that along with non-partisan precinct election commissions’ members there are members who are appointed by the political parties, which often triggers harsh debates, which in turn delays decision-making process. But this is also part of democracy,” he added.