Plans for Exit Poll Announced

Tbilisi-based two think-tanks and two academic institutions officially announced on Tuesday about plans to hold exit poll for the May 21 parliamentary elections.

All the major opposition parties have slammed planned exit poll and said they would not trust its results.

The Georgian Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA), Ilia Chavchavadze State University and two think-tanks – the Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development (CIPDD) and the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS) will coordinate exit polls.

Organizers said at a news conference that four TV networks – the Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB), Rustavi 2 TV, Mze TV and Adjara TV (state-funded) were financing the project. GPB general director, Levan Kubaneishvili, however, said on May 17, that the public TV was not planning to finance the project.

Gigi Tevzadze, a rector of the Ilia Chavchavadze State University, said that resources of various Georgina polling firms would be used to carry out field work. He, however, declined to reveal those polling firms.

BCG, the Tbilisi-based polling firm, said it was not directly involved, but said some of its field workers were contracted by organizers of exit poll, which did not mean that the firm was taking any responsibility over the work. Another polling firm, ACT, said the same.

Estonian think-tank Jaan Tõnisson Institute, the Washington-based public opinion research firm QEV Analytics and Ukrainian Foundation of Democratic Initiatives were invited as consultants to the exit poll, the organizers said.

They also said that first results of exit poll would be available shortly after the polling stations are closed at 8pm local time on May 21.

Meanwhile, two local election observer organizations – International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) and New Generation – New Initiative (nGnI) – plan parallel vote tabulation (PVT). PVT entails counting votes simultaneously with officials from precinct election commissions.