Georgia’s parliamentary elections were neither free nor fair, and with overwhelming evidence that the vote was rigged, the elections, and the incoming government, cannot be considered legitimate.
When Georgians went to the polls on 26 October to elect a new parliament, they did so in an environment of fear mongering and intimidation, and one with a myriad of new repressive laws in place.
The ruling party centred its campaign on their claim that an opposition victory would mean war with Russia and lead to the indoctrination of Georgian children to become gay or transgender. They also focussed heavily on their promise to ban and prosecute the opposition, with one of their satellite groups even suggesting that anyone who voted for the opposition could face criminal charges.
On the day of the vote, the 13 journalists we deployed across the country, a drop in the ocean as far as the election was concerned, still personally witnessed repeated, widespread, and blatant violations of voter secrecy, as well as attempts to intimidate and bribe voters.
Local observer groups, who deployed thousands of observers on election day, have issued damning assessments of what they saw.
WeVote, a coalition of 29 non-governmental organisations formed in the run up to the election, say they have uncovered a ‘scheme of large-scale election fraud’ prepared by the authorities to rig the election. They documented photographic and video evidence as well as eyewitness testimony showing widespread multiple voting using copies of identification documents illegally collected before the vote.
In the run up to the vote, there were widespread reports that ID documents were being confiscated.
