Civil Society:
POST-ELECTION, OPPOSITION CANDIDATE CLAIMS STOLEN VOTES
Molly Corso: 1/08/08

With the clock ticking for finalization of Georgia’s presidential election results, opposition coalition candidate Levan Gachechiladze and supporters have launched a fire-and-brimstone campaign to have tens of thousands of votes for Mikheil Saakashvili nullified and a second round of voting declared.

At an evening press conference on January 7, senior Gachechiladze ally Tina Khidasheli, a member of the Republican Party, alleged that some 100,000 votes from 17 precincts throughout Georgia had been taken from Gachechiladze and given to Saakashvili. Protocols signed by precinct commission members, including representatives of the Republican Party and other opposition parties, do not match protocols published by the Central Election Commission (CEC), she charged.

“We have falsified protocols. We have double protocols. We have protocols that our commission members took from the precinct … with all signatures, with all stamps [that do not match] new protocols issued later by the district commissions that are now the basis for results that CEC is announcing to the whole world and to the Georgian society.”

As of the latest published results, Saakashvili on January 8 was leading the race with 52.1 percent of the vote. Gachechiladze is a distant second with 24.98 percent. (Preliminary results show that Gachechiladze won the vote in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital). Under Georgian law, if no candidate receives 50 percent plus one vote, a second round of voting must be held within two weeks of the original vote. Removing 100,000 votes from Saakashvili’s tally of 922,774 would put Gachechiladze within range for a run-off.

In a made-for-media show of protest January 8, Gachechiladze, an MP, and his supporters stormed the CEC’s headquarters in Tbilisi with their complaints and cornered CEC Chairman Levan Tarkhnishvili in his office in front of television cameras. Using occasional obscenities and the familiar form of address “bicho,” (“boy”), a purple-faced Gachechiladze told Tarkhnishvili that he was a “cheat” and “criminal” and vowed to remove him from office.

“You are rigging the election and you will be punished for that, I promise,” he said. “They have stolen millions of votes … and you [allowed it].”

In a theatrical finish, one of Gachechiladze’s supporters dumped onto the table what appeared to be several dozen legal election ballots marked in favor of Mikheil Saakashvili that the opposition representative claim they took from National Movement activists who were supposedly in the process of so-called carousel voting. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

The CEC has denied any wrongdoing. A frazzled Tarkhnishvili, struggling to speak over yelling opposition supporters and election officials, told reporters during the fracas that the action “is elementary pressure on the Central Election Commission’s work. Nothing more, nothing more.”

At a later news conference, CEC spokesperson Irakli Porchkhidze stated that the commission is ready to respond to any complaint within a set legal procedure - a procedure that does not include barging in on the CEC chief without an appointment. “The CEC is ready to respond to every allegation voiced. However, the reaction will take place only after credible, documented evidence is presented,” Porchkhidze told journalists. “[W]e are aware of some flaws in a few precincts; these are being carefully studied.”

The opposition has yet to give the commission “any specific details” about the alleged fraud, he said in response to a question from EurasiaNet. “We have to see them [the allegedly falsified protocols]. Actually, we have not seen them. They were just waving these things without indicating … any specific details,” he said.

The Republican Party’s Khidasheli, a lawyer who challenged election results during the 2003 parliamentary elections for the Saakashvili-led opposition, called Porchkhidze’s response “stupid.”

“It is stupid. It is unqualified,” she told EurasiaNet. “We cannot go to the CEC right now and they know it. We need to go through the DC [district commission] bodies and we are fighting in the DEC [district election commissions]. We will get to the CEC as well.”

Under Georgian law, complaints must first be filed with the relevant precinct election commissions before proceeding up to the district election commission, and, finally, the Central Election Commission. Complaints rejected by the CEC can be then brought to court.

For the opposition, though, psychological pressure has begun to build. Reports circulating in the international media that incorrectly state that Saakashvili has already won reelection and refer to him as the “president-elect” are one source of grievance. No official, final results for the presidential elections and plebiscites have yet been declared.

The opposition coalition has also launched a campaign against what they term a “media blockade” that they claim has denied them an equal amount of television airtime with Saakashvili. The live broadcast of a Saakashvili campaign celebration at the end of election day sparks particular wrath. In response, Gachechiladze has announced plans to start a hunger strike January 9 in front of the offices of Georgian Public Broadcasting, one of the key targets of opposition complaints of bias.

“This media blockade is the one that is pushing us for a widespread protest in Tbilisi and big cities in this country,” Khidasheli commented on January 7. “If it will continue like that, the only chance for communication we will have left will be the protest on the street.”

At a January 8 news conference, opposition coalition members pledged to stage a “grandiose action” that would bring “all of Georgia out into the streets” if changes were not made to the results by January 13, the deadline for the CEC to announce an official election tally.

Saakashvili’s United National Movement Party has ruled out any possibility of a second round of voting. According to Davit Bakradze, the state minister for territorial integrity and acting spokesman for Saakashvili’s reelection campaign, the issue is not “a matter of political consensus.”

“Having a second round is not a matter of political consensus, it is a legal issue,” he told EurasiaNet on January 8. “We had a free and fair election and now everybody has to accept the result of that election. It is not a matter for political discussion whether someone wants [a] second round or not. It is a legal issue, and it is a democracy issue.”

Gachechiladze supporter Salome Zourabichvili, a former foreign minister, countered that it is “not very responsible” to conclude who won the elections when “nothing” has been finalized. Some protocols are outstanding, while nearly 40,000 “additional” ballots cast by voters who registered the day of the election have also not been counted, according to both the CEC and the Georgian Young Lawyers Association.

The CEC and officials from the National Movement have denied any major vote rigging during the election. While noting “significant challenges” that require “urgent” correction, international and local observers have said that the election’s conduct appeared to meet international norms. They have cited parliamentary elections scheduled for 2008 as a target date to make recommended changes.

“We urge the Government of Georgia to investigate all allegations of irregularities and to work with all political forces to address the challenges and shortcomings identified by international observers prior to parliamentary elections expected this spring,” reads a January 7 statement from the US State Department.

For now, though, the Gachechiladze camp is more concerned with the present.

“I won every single case in 2003 for Saakashvili on the basis of the same argument,” lawyer Khidasheli told reporters on January 7. “And I can promise to all the world that wants to make Saakashvili a winner that … there will be a second round [of voting] in Georgia. And then we will see who will be the winner and who will be the loser.”

Editor’s Note: Molly Corso is a freelance reporter based in Tbilisi. Elizabeth Owen, EurasiaNet's Caucasus News Editor in Tbilisi, added reporting to this story.