Election Watchdog Issues PVT Results

Local election observer organization, International Society for Free Elections and Democracy (ISFED), issued on May 23 – two days after the polling day –  results of parallel vote tabulation, which mainly coincide with the official results.

The final results of the PVT, which are based on the vote tallies from randomly selected 626 polling stations throughout Georgia, are:

National Movement – 59.2%; nine-party opposition bloc – 17.7%; Christian-Democratic Party – 8.6%; Labor Party – 7.4%; Republican Party – 3.7%; Christian-Democratic Alliance – 0.9%; Rightist Alliance-Topadze-Industrialists – 0.9%; Traditionalists-Our Georgia-Women’s Party – 0.5%; Georgian Politics – 0.5%; Georgian Union of Sportsmen – 0.2%; National Party of Radical-Democrats – 0.2%; Our Country – 0.2%.

PVT entails counting votes simultaneously with officials from precinct election commissions.

 Eka Siradze, head of ISFED, said at a press conference on May 23, that the election watchdog observed the facts of pressure and intimidation of observers at the polling stations. 

She also said that it was “difficult to define how these cases of pressure influenced on the process of parallel vote tabulation.”

Siradze also stressed that some important trends have been revealed during the process, in particular, she said, ISFED’s observers had noted increase of number of those voters who cast their ballot at special polling stations – at military barracks/units, detention centres, hospitals. She said that number was increased since the January 5 presidential elections.

She noted that at those polling stations to which the votes cast on special polling station were incorporated, the ruling party received more votes than in other ordinary precincts.