Violations in Mtskheta Did not Influence Election Results

Levan Sepiskveradze, Mtskheta   

Early in the morning on October 1, Mtskheta was strangely silent and expectant. Human Rights Centre sent five of us as election observers. We all said to each other that we preferred to go to a more populous place to observe where we could better investigate people’s positions and the activity around the elections.

I had to observe the elections from the morning in polling station # 5 of district 27, in Mtskheta. It was located in the so-called old post-office in Mtskheta. Some of the voters, after putting their ballot in the ballot-box, were crossing themselves in front of icons on the wall. I was the only observer in this polling station who protested against the presence of objects of religious significance (the icons on the wall) during the elections.

A polling station is a public place where the propaganda of any religion could have an influence on election results. Moreover, the word “Christian” is a part of the name of one of the parties in the elections. No action was taken following my complaint.. I was only treated in an ironic and cynical way by some of the commission members and observers. Well, religion is very often more important than law in our country.

During the elections there were only some technical violations and they were easily solved. One of the most important violations was detected at 11:30 a.m. The voter Temur Martoleki took a photo of his marked ballot paper in the voting booth. As we heard the tinkling sound of a mobile phone we guessed that the man was taking a photo. Martoleki confirmed it himself. As he stated later he wanted to “capture an historical moment”. We discounted Temur Martoleki’s ballot.

At 13:00p.m, while calling on different polling stations, I noticed that Badri Merabishvili, the Georgian Dream observer, was holding a magazine with the symbol of Georgian Dream. This happened at polling station # 3 (Ghatikari) in Mtskheta. Displaying any party symbols and flags in polling stations is prohibited by law. After my complaint Badri Merabishvili took the magazine out of the polling station and apologized: he said he did not know it was prohibited.

While visiting Mtskheta polling stations with a mobile group of Human Rights Centre observers, it turned out that the majority of foreign observers were in the polling stations situated in central and easily accessible parts of Mtskheta. Foreign observers visited almost every polling station but they appeared in Narekvavi (fourth) and Ghatikari (third) polling stations only at 14:00. Over 70 observers entered polling stations #5 and #1 during the day in the centre of Mtskheta. 20 of them were representatives of foreign observation missions.

While visiting the polling stations we also noticed that young supporters of both parties- National Movement and Georgian Dream - were insulting each other near the polling stations. I want to praise the youth of Mtskheta as we did not see any serious conflicts there, though they were making cynical remarks.

The electricity was switched off for three minutes in election station #6 just before the elections ended in the evening. Observers were keeping a close eye on the ballot-box and the incident had no impact on the election results. However, it is interesting to note that like in the “dark” 90s, the electricity still cut out before the end of voting in this polling station.

At the end of the day, I returned to the polling station (at the post-office) where I had observed the elections in the morning. The number of voters had increased and the members of the election commission were very exhausted and were looking at the clock. Everybody was looking forward to eight o’clock to finish the tiresome voting procedure.

Only Zaza Machkhaneli went out of polling station #5. He was one of the12 members of election commission.  After I reacted to his departure, Giorgi Papuashvili, the secretary of the election commission, told me to write a complaint and certainly I did so. It turned out later that Machkhaneli (as he stated) was very tired of the voting procedure and decided to go out into the fresh air. After Machkhaneli returned he had to listen to the reprimands of his colleagues. He justified his actions in a very original way:”What can I do? I am from Mtskheta and I live as it is suitable for me. I cannot act in a different way,” he said.

At 20:00 they closed the door and we all signed a permission form to begin the counting process. We, as independent observers, were glad that the representatives of the OSCE observation mission were taking part in this process with us.

The counters were saying the names of parties and majoritarian candidates very self-confidently. Then the counting became very tiring and it lasted longer than we expected. Georgian Dream activists were gathered at the polling station and periodically they looked into the room from an open window and said: “Do it in time, we are waiting for you!”

This was followed by protests from commission members. But after this they did not pay any attention to the activists looking in from the open window.

Georgian Dream won in our polling station. They got 791 votes out of 911 in this polling station. National Movement got only 84 votes. The other parties got very few votes. Some of them did not get even a vote (I wonder what they were expecting?!) Two majoritarian candidates were competitors in Mtskheta. These were two men from Guria: Dimitri Khundaze, a representative of Georgian Dream, and Andro Kalandadze, the National Movement candidate. Khundadze got 776 votes and Kalandadze 106 votes in Mtskheta election district #27, polling station #5.

After all the procedures in the polling station were completed, the election equipment was packed up. They put the ballots in special sacks. After we went out of the post-office almost the whole town of Mtskheta met us on the street. They were shouting for joy and you could hear car horns beeping non-stop. People were celebrating. I hope they will celebrate after the election result too.