Opposition Fears Voter Lists May Mar Local Elections

The Central Election Commission (CEC) published on June 19 a primary version of voter list, which includes 3,2 million allegeable voters, including 922 000 in the capital Tbilisi.

The list was published several months ahead of the forthcoming local self-governance elections, which, as President Saakashvili put it, will be held in November or “around this month,” but no exact date has been announced yet.

Inaccurate voter list was one of the reasons of fraudulent parliamentary elections in November, 2003. Opposition fears that the authorities may still manipulate election results through inaccurate voter lists during the local elections.

Giorgi Chalagashvili, Chairman of the CEC, admitted on June 19 that the existing voter lists is not perfect and contains numerous inaccuracies; but he offered the opposition parties and election watchdog organizations to cooperate in order to jointly overcome the problem. However, some opposition parties have already described this initiative as CEC’s “attempt to escape the responsibility.”
 
Major inaccuracies in the list are still related with so called ‘dead souls’ – voters long dead but still registered to a vote; incorrect addresses and similar ID numbers of various voters.

The CEC Chairman said that starting from July 15 each citizen will be able to check up himself in a voter list through a hot line that will start operation at the CEC, as well as through internet. Giorgi Chalagashvili said that a final voter list will be ready by late July.    

“Officials think today that a voter himself should be responsible for his presence in a voter list that is a wrong approach. The election administration should guarantee accuracy of voter lists, that, unfortunately, does not happen,” Tamar Zhvania of the election watchdog organization International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) told Civil Georgia.

On June 19 the opposition Republican Party sent a letter to the CEC Chairman, in which it expresses concern over the upcoming local elections due to “numerous organizational, legal and technical problems,” including those related to voter lists.

“Taking into account a short period of time before the elections and the problems revealed as a result of analyzing the available voter lists, we think that the situation is alarming… It is unclear, what was the election administration doing for past two years, and secondly, it becomes impossible to recheck voter lists by our own [scarce] resources – actually we have to register the voters anew and make voter lists from the very beginning,” the letter reads.
 
Vice-Speaker of the Parliament Mikheil Machavariani of the ruling National Movement party, hailed the CEC initiative to establish cooperation with the political parties to ensure accuracy of voter lists.

“If any political party has decided to monitor the lists, we, the National Movement, will be ready to join them,” Mikheil Machavariani said on June 19.

Some opposition parties intend to recheck voter lists individually, but they fear scarce resources will unable them to carry out a total checking.

“I do not know, whether we will manage to recheck the lists completely, because it needs great resources, but still we plan to recheck them and inform the CEC and the society regarding inaccuracies,” Kakha Kukava of the Conservative party told Civil Georgia, adding that the CEC initiative is unclear, as “it is the competence and responsibility of the election administration to examine the lists.”

MP Pikria Chikhradze of the opposition New Rights party said she doubts that the CEC will take into consideration proposals of the opposition parties over voter lists.

The opposition Labor Party says that it has not yet decided whether to participate in the local elections, or to boycott them, so the party is uncertain yet about taking part in rechecking of the voter lists.