04 April 2008, 12:56
Georgian Ombudsman shows video records of falsifications during presidential election
Today, Sozar Subari, Ombudsman of Georgia, has acquainted the audience at the press conference held at the Ombudsman's office with video evidences of the falsifications that took place during the recent presidential election on January 5.
"Only today we've managed to demonstrate all these materials to the public, because the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) was stonewalling, procrastinating and inventing reasons, for instance, that they needed time to get videos from the regions, and that the records cannot be watched," Mr Subari is quoted by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent as saying.
"Finally, two months later, when all the excuses have been exhausted, we've managed to copy randomly chosen records from 12 polling stations from different regions and to start studying them. It's just a drop in the ocean, but they refused to give us data from other stations," Mr Subari has added.
According to his story, out of 12 records seven have fixed gross violations, in two the video eye was inoperative, and only at three stations the protocol data coincided with the actual number of voters.
In the opinion of the Ombudsman, the data in the video records gives enough grounds to demand to punish the authors of falsifications and violations and to raise the issue on criminal liability of the Chairman of the Central Electoral Commission.
According to his story, the CEC members themselves assert that they are going to erase all the records in order to free the place for forthcoming elections.
Author: Edita Badasian, CK correspondent
