Elections in Georgia: fights, stuffing, arrests of observers

Polling stations in Georgia, where the parliamentary elections are taking place on October 26, started their work at 8:00 am.

According to Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Honcharenko, who is in the country as an observer from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, electronic ballot boxes are used for voting - a person has to shade a circle and then send the ballot to the machine.

Photo: Oleksiy Honcharenko/telegram

According to Yevropeiska Pravda, polling stations have opened across the country, except for the occupied Abkhazia and Tskhinvali regions, and will close at 20:00.

The elections will be considered valid with any turnout. A total of 18 parties will be on the ballot. In order to get into the parliament, parties will need to overcome the five percent threshold.

For the first time, the newparliament will be elected not by a mixed-member system, as before, but by a fully proportional system. First, the Central Election Commission will announce the electronic vote count, then the ballots will be recounted manually, and the "manual" result will be considered the real one.

On the eve of the vote, the rating of the ruling Georgian Dream party ranges from 34-35%, which, in the absence of a "first-past-the-post" system, according to journalists, virtually eliminates the chances of forming a new parliamentary majority.

In this year's elections in Georgia, 19 parties have registered, but overcoming the 5% threshold is considered realistic for five political forces: the ruling Georgian Dream party and four opposition associations - Unity, Coalition for Change, Strong Georgia, and For Georgia.

Earlier, Georgia's opposition TV channels - Formula, Pirveli and Mtavari - were fined 5 thousand GEL (equal to 72.5 thousand UAH) each for refusing to air election ads of the ruling Georgian Dream party with destroyed Ukrainian cities.

13:17 Opposition telegram channels report that an activist of the Georgian Dream party attacked observers at one of the polling stations. Local human rights activists record violations: some polling stations opened late, some of them did not have electronic voting machines, and some voters received several ballots. A video of an attempted ballot box stuffing at one of the polling stations was also posted online.

15:34 Police have opened a criminal case over the alleged mass ballot stuffing at polling station #69 in Marneuli district. This was announced at a briefing by the Chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Georgia Giorgi Kalandarishvili.

And in the village of Didvela, Baghdat municipality, a citizen broke into a polling station and broke several electronic voting devices.

19:15 Georgian MP from the opposition United National Movement Giorgi Vashadze says that 5 observers from pro-European forces were illegally detained during the elections in the country.

21:10 Georgian television has reported the following result of counting 97% of electronic protocols from polling stations.

Georgian Dream is at 53%, 4 opposition parties are still overcoming the barrier

Кирило Бойко