Government Misappropriated Votes of Akhalgori District Residents

Mari Otarashvili

“What shall I do? If I do not go to Tserovani to mark number 5, they will take the cottage from me,” complained the resident of Akhalgori district before the municipal elections. “Unless you come and mark number 5, we will send you to Russians,” the IDPs settled in Tserovani village were told by the members of the National Movement. Representative of the Alliance for Georgia Gocha Gabrielashvili stated in his interview with the humanrights.ge that drunken member of the ruling party kicked the observer out of the PS. He said the village councilors and governors carried out election procedures in Tserovani.

IDPs from Akhalgori district settled in Tserovani village did not know who and what they were electing on May 30; in general, most of them were not registered as voters at all. Several of them intended to get registered before the Election Day and receive information about the elections.

Shota Berianidze, an IDP from Akhalgori: “What kind of registration?! Where shall I be registered?! The IDPs living in Tserovani village have no idea what we are electing. I was not registered as a voter and I do not know whether I will go to the elections or not.”

Before Elections

We saw people among the IDPs in Tserovani who was more or less aware about the municipal elections. We collected some information two days before the Election Day. The voters were more sincere about the elections then.

Dato Tatarashvili, a voter from Akhalgori: “Yes I was registered and even received an invitation to the elections. I do not know whom I vote for but as I guess, we have to elect the Mtskheta city council. I do not know the candidates. I do not know how many IDPs were registered for the elections; I think many of them were registered because I saw somebody had a list here and the list was quite long.”

The IDPs had to get registered at the Ministry of Refugees and Accommodation. However, only those IDPs were registered, who had already received the IDP status.

Zurab Magrakvelidze, member of the Central Election Commission:  “As far as I know, the Ministry of Refugees and Accommodation registers the IDPs. They will elect the city and town councils where they are settled or registered. We will face serious problems regarding those IDPs from Akhalgori who do not hold IDP status. Those with the status can take part only in the party-list based elections and in the elections of the city mayor; they cannot elect single mandate candidates. The voter is registered according to residential area. Unfortunately, many IDPs (about 3 000) do not hold status – they are both from Tskhinvali region and Abkhazia. The IDPs with status should get registered at the ministry according to their residential area.  They should provide the IDP certificate and ID. If an IDP is not registered anywhere, we will face serious problems during elections. The votes of those IDPs might be misused. Thus, the election commissions and observers shall be careful.”

The population who remained in the occupied Akhalgori district was skeptical about the elections from the very beginning. They thought they would not need to go Tserovani to vote since they lived in Akhalgori. However, they were disappointed because the National Movement needed the votes of the residents of Akhalgori district. Moreover, director of the Akhalgori district youth palace Tamar Mearkishvili said the local people had to go to Tserovani for the elections.

Tamar Mearkishvili: “Everybody knew from the very beginning that votes of the Akhalgori residents will go in favor of the government. In fact, the National Movement misappropriated 2 000 votes from Akhalgori. They fabricated not only the votes of the IDPs with status but of the IDPs without status. In general, Akhalgori district has always been good place for similar fabrications. Commission members were those people who occupied the same position before the August war in 2008. When a person does not know whom to vote, it is easy to make him/her to mark desirable number. Those, who know what elections are, will mark the ruling party in order not to lose a job or a cottage. My neighbor told me: “I have to look after chickens but what shall I do? I have to go to Tserovani to mark number five; otherwise I will lose the cottage. The second was told, if he would not go and mark number five, they would be sent to Russia.”

After the Elections

In order to find out how the elections were carried out in Tserovani, the Human Rights Center interviewed the commission member at the polling station # 39 Lela Torelashvili.

Lela Torelashvili: “The voters were normally active and in general, the elections were carried out peacefully. At least, we did not observe any violations. I think, the voters might not know the candidates well, but they were more or less informed. Only the IDPs with the stats managed to vote. However, we received people from Akhalgori district, even ethnic Ossetian people. Nobody was threatened or intimidated. Most of them voted for the National Movement. You know we are IDPs and with the support of this government we have houses now. Although we do still lack much…”

Gocha Gabrielashvili, who was single mandate candidate in Tserovani, said that the elections in the IDP settlement were rigged.

Gocha Gabrielashvili: “Initially, the elections were going on peacefully. The total falsification started from 1:00 pm. It happened because they saw the voters were not active. People were under oppression – both physical and psychological. In fact, the elections were carried out by the village councilors and governors. They directly asked the voter which number they were going to vote for. If they heard the different opinion, they were dissatisfied and said “you should vote for the National Movement.” They had acquired various mechanisms of fabrication. In the polling station # 24 drunken people went. In the second half of the day voters without IDs were brought and took part in the elections. People took ballot papers from their pockets. My observer was kicked out of the polling station. It happened later, at about 8:00 pm. A drunken member of the ruling party arrived at the PS and started quarrel. Then, he kicked my observer out.”

According to Gabrielashvili, the Alliance has filed complaint to the commission regarding the fact. The violations were so vivid, that the district election commission annulled the results at the PS.