Announcement of Public Movement Multinational Georgia’s (PMMG)

Public Movement Multinational Georgia’s (PMMG)

announcement

On the fact of interference in the

realization of duties of its short term observer as guaranteed by the election law

Within the frames of PMMG’s 21 October 2017 Elections of the Representative Body of Municipality - Sakrebulo and Mayor of Self-Governing City/Self-governing Community monitoring program  the incident of interference in the realization of duties of PMMG observer as guaranteed by the law was reported from # 59 electoral precinct (village Imiri) of # 22 Marneuli electoral district. The incident of interference was taken part from the side of the member of precinct election commission on the first instance and on the second instance from the side of chairperson of precinct election commission.

More precisely, the short term observer was not given the possibility to check whether the ID data of two voters as appeared in the polling station was identical with that of the common voters’ list. The effort of the observer was guided by the doubt that underlined voters were not registered as the voters at this particular electoral precinct (their physical characteristics do not coincide with the pictures as provided in the common voters’ list).    

Moreover, the doubt was exacerbated by the fact that the member (registrar) of the precinct election commission did not allow the observer to compare ID data with that of the common voters’ list. Hereby it has to be noted that the chairperson of the precinct election commission called on one of the voters not to show the ID to the observer. Thus the interest of PMMG observer has forced the underlined voters to immediately leave the polling station.  

Based on the underlined incident PMMG observer has filed complaints to the respective electoral commissions demanding the imposition of disciplinary sanction against the member (registrar) as well as the chairperson of the commission.

With this regard CEC’s today’s announcement has to be taken into account in which it reiterates the fact that election administration is responsible not to restrict the rights of observers as stipulated by the law. CEC’s announcement was made in response to the information as disseminated in the media according to which representatives of various electoral subjects as well as observers are checking the voters’ data with the registrar.

PMMG believes that such types of incidents are creating fertile ground for the repeated voting which on its turn threatens the conduct of elections in fair and transparent manner. Therefore, for the purpose of prevention of unfavorable electoral practice it is utterly important the observers are given the possibilities to fully realize own duties as stipulated by the law.

2017-10-21 22:23:13| | 10410