Local Observers Comment on Polls
Election watchdog group, Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), said there were cases of “forcing” its observers “out of the polling stations.”
“It is not possible to make a general assessment of the electoral process at this stage, because very important part of the process is now ongoing – vote counting and tabulation,” Giorgi Chkheidze, head of GYLA, told Civil.Ge. “Presently there are cases when our observers are being forced out from the polling stations. Such facts have taken place in Gori, Rustavi, Mtskheta. Pressure is mostly exerted by the members of the [precinct] commissions, who are unhappy with our observers writing complaints.”
Koki Ionatamishvili, head of another local election observer organization, New Generation-New Initiative (nGnI), in his first early assessment stressed mainly on positive aspects of the work carried out by election administrations.
“In the most of the polling stations commissions managed to conduct process in frames of the law,” Ionatamishvili said. “They reacted appropriately to many of our complaints… We will be able to make more precise assessment later; but now we can already note that one of the major positive trend during this election was that adequate reaction to violations were made by either precinct election commissions, or by district election commission and there was no need to involve the CEC chairman Levan Tarkhnishvili in resolving problems as it was the case during the presidential elections.”
He also noted that results at one of the polling stations in Gori have been canceled by the election administration because of obvious violations.
Meanwhile, a coalition of non-governmental organizations – including Caucasus Women’s Network; International Center for Conflict and Negotiation; Centre for Protection of Constitutional Right; Human Rights Center; Article 42 of Constitution – conducting election observation, said on Wednesday evening that they were withdrawing their observers from polling stations because of “regular pressure, intimidation and verbal insult” of its observers. The coalition said that it had about 300 observers throughout Georgia.
