<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/31/georgia-election-final-recount-ruling-party-victory-electoral-commission>
"Officials in Georgia said a partial recount confirmed the ruling party had won
its disputed election, while a global research and data firm called the
official results reported by the electoral commission “statistically
impossible”.
The pro-western opposition on Thursday repeated its earlier assertions that the
parliamentary vote had been “stolen” by the ruling Georgian Dream party and it
refused to recognise the results, plunging the Caucasus country into
uncertainty.
The pro-European president, Salome Zourabichvili, who is at loggerheads with
the governing party, has declared the election results “illegitimate”, alleging
there was a “Russian special operation” to undermine the vote, which the
Kremlin has denied. The opposition has called for further protests next week.
On Monday tens of thousands of people thronged the streets in Tbilisi to
protest against the alleged fraud.
The central election commission told
Agence France-Presse on Thursday that a
recount at about 12% of polling stations, involving 14% of the vote, “didn’t
lead to a significant change to previously announced official results”.
“Final tallies only slightly changed at some 9% of recounted polling stations,”
a spokesperson said.
But the Georgian opposition says the ruling party has engaged in widespread
election tampering, citing stark discrepancies between the initial results and
an exit poll conducted by western pollsters that showed the ruling party
winning only 40% of the vote. On Thursday, the global market research and data
firm HarrisX, which carried out one of the exit polls for Georgia’s
parliamentary election, said the official results reported by the electoral
commission were “statistically impossible”.
International observers, the EU and the US have criticised electoral
irregularities and demanded a full investigation. The European Commission on
Wednesday said it would not recommend opening EU membership talks with Georgia
unless the country changed course.
Georgia’s interior ministry has rejected calls by the opposition to redo the
elections. The ministry said two people had been arrested after alleged ballot
stuffing at a provincial polling station, while prosecutors said they had
opened 47 criminal cases over alleged electoral violations."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
