Ruling Party MP Condemns Opposition ‘Violence’ Against CEC

Levan Bezhashvili, a ruling party lawmaker and chairman of the parliamentary committee for legal issues, has accused the nine-party opposition coalition of using “intimidation and violence” – which, he said, was in accordance with the unrest planned by business tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili.

His comments followed an earlier verbal exhange between the leaders of the bloc, including their presidential candidate, Levan Gachechiladze, and Levan Tarkhnishvili, the chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC). Gachechiladze and others screamed at Tarkhnishvili, accusing him of manipulating election results by falsifying original vote summary protocols.

MP Bezhashvili, however, alleged that the protocols presented by the opposition were in fact falsified by the opposition itself.
 
“We think that the opposition-nominated members of certain precinct election commissions might be involved in this falsification – a scenario outlined by Patarkatsishvili before the election, when he said that all it took was two bags of falsified ballot papers to trigger public unrest,” Bezhashvili said.

He said that “irritated” by positive conclusions made by the international election observation mission, the opposition had chosen aggressive tactics, “like bursting into the CEC, violence and intimidation.” “Such violent methods have not yielded results in any country, and naturally they will not work in our country either,” he added.