The Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) gave muted prase on Thursday to Georgia's recent parliamentary elections, and made clear their implementation was
"uneven and incomplete."
The preliminary findings by Europe's top election review agency contrasted
sharply with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who had claimed the
Wednesday vote giving his United Nation Party (UNP) an overwhelming victory was
free, fair, and generally in line with international standards.
An OSCE statement pointed out both successes and failures in the former Soviet
republic's conduct of its second-ever democratic parliamentary vote on
Wednesday.
Georgia's electoral legal framework, the campaign's wide variety of candidates,
fairly open media giving a full spectrum of views, a general calm on voting
day, and freedom for all parties to campaign were cited as clear positive
achievements in the Georgian vote.
At least isolated and possibly more than occasional instances of voter and
observer intimidation, government use of state media to push its political
party, the Saakashvili party's unilateral change of voting law shortly before
the election, failure of election commissions and courts to review some
complaints, were cited as drawbacks to the vote.
In a subtle but unmistakable shot at Saakashvili's arguments the vote results
accurately represented the will of the Georgian people, the OSCE statement
avoided describing the vote as in keeping with international standards, instead
using the language "political stakeholders in Georgia made efforts to
conduct yesterday's parliamentary elections in line with international
standards."
More directly, the report cited "many significant procedural
shortcomings" in the vote-counting process.
Joao Soares, head of an OSCE delegation to Georgia, avoided calling the vote
undemocratic, saying "These elections were not perfect, but since I was
here in January for the presidential election, concrete and substantial
progress has been made. Problems and much work remain."
Saakashvili's United Nation Movement party was likely to capture 62.8 per cent
of the popular vote, while its closet rival, the United Opposition, would
receive only 13.6 per cent, said Zurab Kachkachishvili, a Central Election
Commission (CEC) spokesman citing partial ballot counts.
Final results from the poll selecting the Caucausian republic's next parliament
are expected on Friday.
Two smaller anti-Saakashvili parties the Christian Democrat Movement and the
Labour Party, also were likely to place MPs in the next legislature, having
received 8.6 and 6.1 per cent of the popular vote respectively, Kachkachishvili
said.
A party must obtain 5 per cent or more of the national vote, in order to send
representatives to parliament, according to Georgian constitutional statute.
Eight parties failed to overcome the barrier.
The tentative results, if born out by the final count, would give Saakashvili
and his party continued total dominance of Georgian politics, including
possibly the ability to amend the constitution at will.
Turn out in the vote appeared relatively weak, with only 55 per cent of
registered voters actually casting ballots, according to CEC statistics.
The tentative official results made public by the CEC Thursday morning roughly
matched exit polls made public immediately after voting ceased at eight p.m.
Wednesday evening.
Opposition forces held a rally at Tbilisi's Palace of Sport into the early
morning hours of Thursday, attracting some 3,000-5,000 participants.
Gia Tortladze, a senior member of the United Opposition party, harangued
attendees at the gathering, saying in part "If the official results match
the exit polls, the authorities will have a people's revolution on their
hands."
A parallel ballot count showed opposition forces collectively actually had
defeated Saakashvili's party, Tortladze and other opposition speakers claimed.
But the crowd, made up of a mix of students and middle-aged opposition
supporters, gathered in a working class Tbilisi district far from the city
centre, hardly seemed to eyewitnesses the stuff to choose an open confrontation
with the state.
Government security presence early Thursday morning at the opposition gathering
was low key, with uniformed cops staying in the background, police cruisers
passing by every few minutes. One plain clothes officer was moving through the
crowd and photographing selected participants.
Anti-Saakashvili demonstrations last year ended in violence after the
US-educated Georgian president unleashed riot police on the crowd.
Thursday news reports brought additional details on a recent shooting incident
on the border between Georgia and its renegade province Abkhazia on Wednesday,
when two busloads of ethnic Georgians attempted to travel from Abkhazia to Georgia to cast ballots.
Initially conflicting government reports had solidified on Thursday into claims
that "unknown persons" opened fire on the vehicles with automatic
weapons and grenade launchers, injuring several riders.
Georgia's state-controlled television Thursday showed images of an ensuing
20-minute firefight between Georgian troops and purportedly Abkhazian
opponents. The loud exchange of rifle and machine gun fire produced no
casualties on the Georgian side.
Television images from the scene included a pair of destroyed buses, Georgian
soldiers firing without aiming, and a Georgian woman with a bullet or fragment
injury to her back.
Abkhazian officials denied their troops had done the shooting. An officer with
Russian peacekeepers in the region confirmed a firefight had taken place, but
declined to speculate on its participants, dpa
reported.
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