Service Development Agency Chair: NGOs Are Lying
Soso Giorgadze, Chairman of the Public Service Development Agency (PSDA), says the non-governmental sector is lying when they accuse the agency of printing fake ID documents in order to forge the presidential election runoff in favor of Salome Zurabishvili, a presidential candidate supported by the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party.
Giorgadze stressed he appealed to the General Inspection of the Ministry of Justice to study the charges. In turn, the NGOs addressed the Prosecutor's Office to investigate the attempted fraud of the elections.
"The OSCE evaluation of these elections reads that there is a trust towards the voter lists," the PSDA Head added.
Giorgadze expressing hope that after investigation establishes the truth, the NGO representatives will apologize for their statements.
“This is defamation. The NGOs accuse me of a criminal offense and they have to present proof of it,” he said.
Thee major non-governmental organizations based in Georgia, the Georgian Young Lawyers' Association, Transparency International-Georgia and International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy stated that an employee of the PSDA informed them that the Agency is allegedly producing fake identification cards.
“According to this employee, fake ID cards are being printed with the purpose of rigging the second round of the presidential elections in favor of Zurabishvili, and the Agency’s high-ranking officials are supervising the process,” the NGOs noted.
The statement of the civil sector reads that five IDs are to be printed per person, indicating different last names, first names, and personal numbers but the same photo of that one person.
“The information about that person would appear in the voter lists of several polling stations, making it possible for one person to vote at several polling stations with different ID cards,” the NGOs explained.
The organizations added the source claims that Soso Giorgadze and Bezhan Obgaidze, Head of the Internal Audit Service of the Agency, are in charge of the process.
The investigation has already been launched by the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia.
By Thea Morrison
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