The Tbilisi City Court has not satisfied the lawsuits filed by Georgian non-governmental organizations and the opposition for non-recognition of the results of the parliamentary elections.
We are talking about 11 lawsuits. The plaintiffs are the coalitions “Unity - National Movement” and “Strong Georgia”, as well as the “Association of Young Lawyers of Georgia”. The defendant was the Central Election Commission of Georgia.
The plaintiffs demanded that the final protocols of the district election commissions be recognized invalid. They believe that the secrecy of the vote was violated because of transparent ballots. When the electronic ballot box took the ballot from the frame-envelope, the marker marks were translucent on the back side, and those in the vicinity could easily guess for which subject a citizen voted.
In addition, the opposition alleges that on election day, the election administration replaced the branded markers of equipment vendor Smartmatic, with “off-brand” markers. This is supposedly the reason why the black circle was visible on the back side. The CEC said that this information “is a complete lie and is aimed at misleading the public.” It claims that only markers provided by Smartmatic were used at the polling stations.
At the end of the 13-hour session Judge Iveri Abashidze did not satisfy any of the claims. He considered all the complaints unfounded.
The opposition believes that the decision was ordered by the ruling party. Tamar Kordzaia, a representative of Unity, pointed out that the judge “did not even read the evidence”. By the way, the plaintiffs cited the testimony of up to 60 witnesses. They also insisted on questioning members of the district election commissions and the expert who prepared the opinions on the voting machines.
“The ruling party is in the style of the Soviet Union. Today, instead of the Communist Party, it is called Georgian Dream and it has Bidzina Ivanishvili at its head. It claims complete dictatorship precisely because not a single complaint was satisfied, not a single argument was substantiated. [The judge] was not interested in anything, he did not see or read the evidence, because the issue was already decided,” Kordzaia said.
Last week, appeals courts in Tbilisi and Kutaisi failed to satisfy NGO and opposition claims to invalidate the final protocols of the polling stations. The last opportunity to challenge the election results in court will appear after the CEC appeals the final protocol. According to the law, the election administration must announce the final election results no later than November 21.
Reprinted from https://www.newsgeorgia.ge/
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