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Government Intended to Throw Ballot Papers in the Garbage

January 11, 2008
NGOs caught Central Election Commission on the crime.

On January 10 at 1:00 PM the NGO Coalition for Democracy held demonstration in front of the CEC. The NGOs demanded to launch criminal prosecution against Levan Tarkhnishvili, the chairperson of the CEC.

The reason for their request was numerous violations that were observed during the elections. The coalition witnessed a new crime on the place of demonstration. They saw how the CEC tried to get rid of extra ballot papers.

Ucha Nanuashvili, the executive director of the Human Rights Center stated: “During the demonstration a garbage truck of the City Sanitation Department was standing near the CEC. The dustmen were carrying out dozens of boxes full of papers. Initially we did not pay attention to them but later we noticed that there were ballot papers and voter’s lists too. We got curious and shot photos. I took one of the boxes from the dustmen but when I was carrying it towards my car, policemen and security guard started argument initially with the dustmen and then demanded me to return the box. Anyway, we managed to check the box and discovered envelopes of already circled ballot papers. The whole staff was in one big envelope that was marked. The envelopes had all the seals of the CEC. Simply they were not open. Part of envelopes contained additional lists and another part had copies of IDs.”

“We checked the information and found out that all election documents must be reserved for five years. Consequently, it was crime to throw them away. It was evident; they were getting rid of extra ballot papers.”

“When we were demonstrating in front of the CEC building, Tarkhnishvili had meeting with ambassadors. Leaving the building some of them stopped and listened to us. However, most diplomats did not pay attention to us; maybe they did not like any cameras working there; they did not want to be interviewed.”

Coalition members think that the government might use the fact for their sake and insist that the demonstration was part of Badri Patarkatsishvili’s plans.

Ucha Nanuashvili: “The government used to predict that certain people would hold demonstrations and show some boxes claiming elections where flawed. So our demonstration might be associated with their prediction.”

Photos

Nona Suvariani, Tbilisi 


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