Tbilisi (GBC) - The International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy, a non-governmental organisation in Georgia, on Sunday announced its parallel vote tabulation for Saturday’s parliamentary elections aligned with official preliminary figures from the country’s Central Election Commission, but questioned the “validity” of the vote.
In its statement, the NGO highlighted the alignment did not endorse the validity of the election process, pointing to “severe violations observed throughout the pre-election period and on election day itself”, which it claimed had “hindered the expression of voters' free will”.
The ISFED also outlined a “series of issues” that it claimed had “marred the electoral environment”, including “reports of voter intimidation, confiscation of identification cards, improper collection and processing of personal data, and extensive voter bribery”.
Referring to the election day, the organisation cited incidents of “ballot stuffing, multiple voting, large-scale voter bribery, expulsion of observers from polling stations, and organised efforts to control voters' will by collecting personal data and monitoring preferences outside polling stations”.
The ISFED argued the “combined violations” could have skewed the election outcome, casting doubt on whether the results accurately reflected the Georgian electorate's intent.
Pointing to alleged violations, the election watchdog said it had chosen not to release the detailed data from its PVT, viewing the election environment as “fundamentally flawed”.
The Georgian Dream authorities, whose party has secured more than 53 percent of the vote in the elections, has described the NGO as being “aligned with foreign interests”, pointing to its inaccurate PVT results in the 2020 general elections, which they claim had been used by the “radical wing of the domestic opposition” to “artificially spark” post-election unrest.
