Opposition Coalition Calls for Repeat Presidential Polls

The eight-party opposition coalition has called for repeat presidential polls, basing its demand on the OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission’s Final Report on the January 5 election.

To back its demand, the coalition has called for protest rallies starting from March 9.

“This [OSCE/ODIHR] statement is a huge victory of the Georgian people on the international arena,” Koba Davitashvili, leader of the Party of People, part of the eight-party coalition, said at a press conference on March 5. “From now on Mikheil Saakashvili is not a legitimate president in the eyes of the entire world. Now, another key demand is added to the coalition’s demands and it is repeat presidential elections.” 

According to the final report, although election day and voting were generally assessed positively, the vote count and tabulation was evaluated “less positively.”

“A significant 23% of [vote] counts [out of a total of 180] observed by IEOM [International Election Observation Mission] observers were assessed as bad or very bad,” the report reads. “Some 35% of PECs [Precinct Election Commissions] did not perform various steps of the vote count in the prescribed order.”

This is the second time this week that the opposition has threatened to stage protests.  With Parliament with its first hearing on March 4 approving a controversial proposal on electing majoritarian MPs, the opposition cried foul and called for protests, seeing the measure as a breech of an earlier agreement.

If approved on the second and third hearings, the number of majoritarian MPs in the new parliament will increase from 50 – as currently mandated in the constitution – to 75 and those elected through the proportional party-list system will go from 100 to 75.

MP Zviad Dzidziguri of the opposition Conservative party said that the opposition would launch street rallies, since “the authorities will fail to understand otherwise.”

It is unknown whether other opposition parties, including the Republican Party and the New Rights, will take to the streets with their colleagues in the opposition coalition.