Lelo Member: We’ve Observed the So-called Election Carousel-voting

Davit Usupashvili, one of the leaders of the political party Lelo, said at a briefing that they witnessed "carousel-voting" during the ongoing Parliamentary Elections. 

"We’ve observed so-called carousel-voting. As soon as we have the relevant facts, we will expose the district," he stated. 

Lelo leaders Davit Usupashvili and Tazo Datunashvili talked about the violations during the elections at the briefing. They noted that their observers had drawn up several complaints.

In particular, as stated by them, a violation occurred in the 14th polling station of Samtredia district, where a Lelo supporter was waiting for a mobile ballot box to register, but he was declared dead, which is a gross violation of law and voting rights. The voting process started with violations in the 54th precinct of Rustavi, as only two of the large group of observers were allowed in, and the rest of the observers were not allowed to enter the polling station. Accordingly, a complaint was also lodged against this fact. 

The leaders of Lelo addressed the Central Election Commission and the government, noting that the violations observed in the polling stations were harmful to the democratic process and called on the public to participate in the elections. 

The Lelo for Georgia political party was created at the end of 2019 by businessmen Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze. The party says that it seeks to "defeat the bipolar system" that it sees as dominant in Georgia. They are close to the opposition alliance which was formed during early 2020 in order to contest the Georgian Dream parliamentary majority.

By Ana Dumbadze