CEC Chair Meets Dip Corps, Int’l Observers for Briefing

Chairwoman of the Central Election Commission (CEC) Tamar Zhvania met with representatives of diplomatic missions to address the controversies surrounding the October 31 parliamentary election.

The International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) reported violations in 8% of polling stations, saying ballot papers outnumbered voters’ signatures on the list.

ISFED’s Chief Executive Director Elene Nizharadze said: “The CEC should recount votes in 8% of polling stations where there were more ballots than registered voters. Such violations undermine public confidence in the election process are require an immediate response from the CEC”.

Tamar Zhvania said the discrepancies reported by the NGO ISFED and various opposition leaders have an ‘objective reason’.

“The imbalance between the ballot papers and voters’ signatures on the list is due to the fact that some voters were unable to vote in their places of registration. The voters who were in self-isolation, quarantine, hospitals or voted at special polling stations were unable to participate in the majoritarian elections, they only voted for parties,” Zhvania said. 

Zhvania also stated that opposition members deliberately released uncorrected summaries to stir public controversy; while the CEC only used the eventual amended summaries to count the results.

“Errors often take place while entering figures in the summaries of election results. To address the error, a corrected summary is made. It is evident that we would use corrected summaries when counting the results. Certain persons uploaded the initial versions of the summaries on social media to mislead people, while the corrected summaries were available on the CEC’s official webpage,” she said. 

“The process was transparent. It was observed by more than 80,000 representatives of political parties, 4,000 accredited observers and over 6,000 media representatives,” she added.

During the briefing, opposition members and activists gathered in front of the CEC building to demand the Zhvania's resignation and a re-run of the elections. 

The opposition refuses to recognize the results of the October 31 election as valid, saying they have been manipulated.

Photo: CEC