The Daily Beat: 27 November
Bidzina Ivanishvili, the honorary chairman and patron of the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party, has nominated former Manchester City player Mikheil Kavelashvili, a member of its nativist faction, “People’s Power,” as its Presidential nominee. Kavelashvili is a co-founder of the “People’s Power” faction of the ruling party and is known for profanity-laced tirades in parliament and his virulently anti-Western stance, with particular animus directed against the United States.
Roman Udot, an election data analyst, forensic expert, and former political prisoner in Russia, has shared his statistical analysis of the gender composition of voters in the October 26 elections, pointing to serious discrepancies according to the data provided by the Central Election Commission (CEC). Using a method similar to the Kiesling-Shpilkin approach for detecting turnout distortions, he estimates the number of anomalous votes at approximately 300,000.
In an interview with UN Global Compact Network Georgia, German Ambassador Peter Fischer discussed Georgia’s stalled EU accession process and German-Georgian relations, noting that the EU had granted Georgia candidate status as a “sign of love and affection,” despite the Georgian government’s failure to meet the nine conditions for candidacy. Ambassador Fischer also described the state of German-Georgian relations as a crisis, saying: “We are at an impasse now.”
The Rule of Law Centre, a watchdog organization, calls on the Prosecutor’s Office and the Special Investigation Service (SIS) to thoroughly investigate allegations of police violence against Anatoli Gigauri, a participant in the November 24 protest near the Georgian Parliament, who was charged with assaulting a police officer.
Nino Lomjaria, former public defender and representative of the My Vote observation mission, has been questioned at the Tbilisi City Court regarding an investigation into possible election fraud. Lomjaria, who had previously been summoned to the Prosecutor’s office, arrived at the Court with detailed evidence of electoral violations, including voter manipulation, data handling, and voter buying.
19 members of the Coalition for Change, who had been issued MP mandates, submitted individual appeals to Parliament, calling for their revocation. The Coalition members say that the current parliament is both illegitimate and unconstitutional. They had previously appealed to the Central Election Commission (CEC) to annul party lists. For more updates on post-election developments, visit our Live Blog: Georgia’s Disputed October Elections.
