Georgians Living in Russia Barred from Voting

TBILISI - Georgian citizens living in Russia have been denied the right to vote in today’s Parliamentary Elections after the Kremlin refused to allow the Georgian government the ability to set up polling stations for its citizens.

The Georgian government opened 55 polling places worldwide to allow its citizens abroad the ability to cast their votes. Georgian citizens living abroad will only be able to vote for individual parties, not majoritarian candidates.

Russia is home to the world’s largest number of Georgian emigrants. Up to 200,000 Georgian citizens, who are eligible to vote, live in the Russian Federation.

Relations between Moscow and Tbilisi have been frozen since a bloody five-day war between the two former Soviet republics over Georgia’s breakaway region South Ossetia resulted in hundreds being dead, thousands displaced and Russia’s occupation of more than 20 per cent of Georgia’s territory.

The 200,000 eligible Georgian voters living in Russia could have been a key bloc of swing voters in an election that is thought to be close.

3.5 million Georgians have registered to vote in today’s elections.

By Natia Liparteliani

Edited by Nicholas Waller