Opposition, Ruling Party at Odds over Party-List Submission
Opposition parties have said they are not convinced that the ruling party submitted its list of MP candidates to the Central Election Commission (CEC) in accordance with procedures.
CEC opposition members saw the list submitted by the ruling party after midnight following heated disputes within the CEC. The opposition, however, said that the list was in a room, where ordinarily it should not have been kept, which served to cast further doubt on ruling party claims that the list had been submitted before the deadline had expired at 6pm on April 21.
Ruling party officials, however, denied the allegation, saying that the opposition had seen the list with observers from the OSCE/ODIHR and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) present to confirm that the list was indeed in the CEC. The OSCE/ODIHR finding on the matter will only be available when it releases its interim pre-election report.
Giorgi Chkheidze of the local watchdog group Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) said that the ruling party’s list of MP candidates had not been in the room where it should have been.
