Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) said it had filed 230 complaints with the election administration, demanding it invalidate the results from 30 polling stations, civil Georgia reported.
GYLA, which fielded 400 election observers in Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Batumi and Khelvachauri, said it wanted the election administration to annual results from some precincts in Vake and Saburtalo (both districts in Tbilisi), Kutaisi and Khelvachauri, where, it maintained, “grave violations had been observed.”
“If our demand is met, it is difficult at this stage to say whether it will have an effect on the overall result of the election,” Giorgi Chkheidze, head of GYLA, said on January 7.
In the two Tbilisi districts mentioned by GYLA, candidate Levan Gachechiladze tends to have the lead. In the other areas, incumbent candidate Mikheil Saakashvili has a slight edge.
He also said that despite some procedural violations on election day, in general the polls were held without any “mass violations.” “So we can say that the election was held properly and is valid,” Chkheidze said.
About 40 complaints submitted to district election commissions concern revoking of results in some polling stations, Levan Tarkhnishvili, the Chairman of Central Election Commission of Georgia (CEC) told InterpressNews.
He said there are more than 400 complaints overall. After discussing them in district commissions, constituencies have to address CEC with relevant recommendations.
‘There are four complaints submitted CEC for now and mostly, of procedural feature,’ the CEC chair said.
As per Levan Tarkhnishvili, no radical changes are expected in the results.
Elections were ‘Brilliant’ – Saakashvili
Incumbent candidate Mikheil Saakashvili hailed the January 5 presidential elections as “brilliant” and added that international observers’ conclusions were extremely positive.
“It was a brilliant election. I think everybody has witnessed that it was the freest, the most competitive and the most successful election in the history of Georgia,” Saakashvili told reporters on January 7.
Speaking with journalists after attending an Orthodox Christmas mass in the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Tbilisi, Saakashvili also said: “I have seen many observers, many assessments and many [election observation] missions, but such a high assessment has never been given to the elections in Georgia.”
Zhirinovsky Congratulates Mikheil Saakashvili
Russia's Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) said on Sunday that its leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, had sent Mikheil Saakashvili a telegram congratulating him on ‘a brilliant victory’ in Georgia's presidential election but that Saakashvili's victory meant triumph for ‘an authoritarian regime,’ according to Interfax.
The LDPR's parliamentary group said in a press release that it ‘expresses solidarity with Georgian democratic parties that have unfortunately lost the presidential election.’
‘An authoritarian regime has become established in Georgia for many years to come. This is mainly the fault of the Georgian communists, who have been unable to raise a new generation of Georgians who would be able to appreciate modern democracy,’ Interfax cites the group as saying.
Source: Civil Georgia, InterpressNews
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