31 May 2008, 15:13
Chkheidze: parliamentary elections in Georgia were more democratic that the presidential one
According to Georgiy Chkheidze, Chairman of the NGO named "Association of Young Lawyers of Georgia" (AYLG), the parliamentary elections in Georgia were more democratic than the presidential one: this time, more attention was given to observers' complaints.
"Now, the constituency commissions behaved differently, they considered complaints," Mr Chkheidze asserts. However, when comparing, one should mind also the pre-election period and the voting day. After 8:00 p.m., when the polling stations closed, there were two cases of planting ballot papers into the boxes - at stations Nos. 17 in Mtskheta and 48 in Gori. And yesterday one of the witnesses who had confirmed this fact at the Gori station was executed."
According to Georgiy Chkheidze, the consideration of complaints is still on: "Some results are already on hand, for example, the outcomes of 11 stations have been invalidated. Information from the regions is still being gathered. A serious problem is in witnesses who should confirm all these facts."
"When observers wrote their complaints, it happened that members of electoral commissions abstained from signing them. Probably, the pressure on them was the matter; information about such pressure appeared from time to time on the eve of the elections," Mr Chkheidze has noted and assured, that he and the activists of his organization "will go to the end" with every single complaint.
Author: Edita Badasian, CK correspondent
