‘You’re a Cheat and Should Resign’ – Gachechiladze Tells CEC Chief

Levan Gachechiladze (left) shouts at CEC Chairman Levan Tarkhnishvili (right), after marching with supporters into the latter’s office. Photo: InterPressNews

Candidate Levan Gachechiladze, angry at alleged vote counting irregularities that favor incumbent candidate Mikheil Saakashvili, shouted at Central Election Commission Chairman Levan Tarkhnishvili: “You are a cheat and criminal, without conscience; you’re rigging the election and you should resign.”

Gachechiladze, accompanied by several political associates, made his outburst in the CEC chairman’s office, which he had marched into uninvited. He claimed, in the presence of dozens of journalists who were in the building at the time, that election administrations were manipulating election results by falsifying vote summary protocols.

“You are rigging the election and you will be punished for that, I promise,” Gachechiladze told Tarkhnishvili. “You should leave this office [meaning, quit the position], otherwise I will force you to quit… Saakashvili is enemy number one for Georgia and you are enemy number two.”

Then Tina Khidasheli of the Republican Party, part of the nine-party opposition coalition, showed Tarkhnishvili what she said was a copy of an original vote summary protocol from one of the precincts. She claimed that the original protocol gave more votes to Gachechiladze, but the protocol subsequently sent by the precinct to the CEC gave Saakashvili the majority of votes.

“Is this an original summary protocol?” Tarkhnishvili asked Khidasheli. “This is a photocopy of an original protocol,” Khidasheli responded. Tarkhnishvili, however, said: “Yes this is a photocopy, which is so easy to fake.”

Tarkhnishvili then complained that the impromptu meeting was an unwarranted opposition attempt to intimidate him. “You have broken into my office and are now trying to intimidate me,” he told his unwelcome guests. “This is an unacceptable working environment; it’s absolutely impossible to work under such conditions.”