Election complaints about unbalanced protocols were not satisfied

Natia Gogolashvili

In relation with the 2016 Parliamentary Elections, several opposition political parties lodged election complaints to the courts about unbalanced final protocols; however the court did not satisfy any of them. As opposition political party members say the elections were fabricated. 

Election block Nino Burjanadze – Democratic Movement appealed the final protocols of several precincts during the parliamentary elections. According to the information provided by the political party, about 300 complaints were lodged to the District Election Commissions. Considering the fact that neither DECs nor the Central Election Commission satisfied the complaints, the Block sent up to 15 appeals to the court; however, neither civil nor appeal courts satisfied the appeals. At the same time, the election block appealed the final protocols of the CEC and Adjara Autonomous Republic Election Commission and requested to re-count the PEC results but all in vain.

Member of the Democratic Movement Manuchar Omanadze said regardless many violations, they prepared complaints only about the cases where significant violations were observed.

“12 final protocols of polling stations were of particular interest, which contained very obvious violations. For example, 800 voters were registered in one of the polling stations while 860 people participated in the ballot. The protocols did not indicate number of voters, who arrived at the precincts and the balance was calculated without that. We have a question: if you do not know how many people came to the polling station, how could you make balance?! In some cases, the PEC members were completely removed from the ballot counting process and were expelled from the polling stations. There was a case when our representative observed violation when filling in the final protocol but different protocol was submitted to the DEC; the latter was sent to the CEC. We have original copy of the protocol with signature and seal but different protocol was prepared in the DEC. It happened in Saburtalo district polling station. 760 ballot papers were spoiled there and 700 voters had come. It was such an obvious violation, that the DEC chairperson decided to re-count ballot papers. However, after several calls from the CEC, the DEC chairperson changed mind and did not amend the final protocol of the DEC,” Manuchar Omanadze told humanrights.ge

He added that the court did not satisfy any of their appeals. He thinks the court did not agree to re-count votes in any precinct because the violations observed in them could become ground of re-counting other results too. 

The court did not satisfy the lawsuits of the Alliance of Georgian Patriots either. Gocha Tevdoradze said they had observed violations throughout the country.

“We had lodged 38-40 appeals to the courts throughout Georgia; they were about unbalanced protocols. We requested re-counting of votes in some polling stations but the court did not satisfy any of our complaints. For example, the PEC had accepted 200 ballot papers but when you counted the final votes, it seemed that 205 had voted in that particular precinct; how it could happen?! When we requested re-counting of the votes, they did not satisfy our requests. Similar violations were mostly observed in the regions though some cases happened in Tbilisi too. Now, we have sent the constitutional lawsuit about incorrect distribution of MP mandates,” Gocha Tevdoradze of the Alliance of Patriots said.

According to the information provided by the CEC, in the first round of the Parliamentary Elections, 186 complaints were submitted to them where annulment of the final protocols was requested; 430 complaints were submitted with the request to re-count the votes. As for the second round of the elections, 13 complaints requested annulment of the protocols and 24 – to re-count the votes.

Executive director of the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy Mikheil Benidze said the election complaints faced some problems in the courts. “If we review the general situation, we had some complaints about the court’s work not only after the elections but during the pre-election period considering the manner how they reviewed the election complaints. Many miscarriages shall be eradicated in this direction, particularly the problem of competence and wrong interpretation of the law. We often had feeling that the judges did not correctly understand the law,” Mikheil Benidze said.