Parliamentary election: Georgia: Election management reports attempted manipulation

According to official information, there was an attempt to manipulate the parliamentary election in Georgia. In the small town of Marneuli in the southeast of the country, a man threw in several ballot papers at a polling station and voting there was interrupted, the central electoral commission told the Interpressnews news agency. The results at the polling station would not be counted, it was said. The opposition and the government blamed each other for the incident.

The head of the largest opposition party, the United National Movement, Tina Bokuchava, spoke of a provocation organized by the ruling Georgian Dream party because the opposition had won in the constituency. “We have already accurately identified the provocateur, who is a member of the Georgian Dream, but the police have not yet arrested him,” she said.

A representative of the Georgian Dream, however, said that the man had been bought by the opposition to carry out the provocation. The aim is to then portray the election as illegitimate.

The electoral commission has not yet revealed the identity of the vote thrower. The Interior Ministry initiated criminal proceedings, but there has been no talk of an arrest so far.

The parliamentary elections in Georgia are seen as groundbreaking. The government is taking an increasingly nationalist-conservative course and is orienting itself towards Russia. It is fueling fears that war would break out if the opposition wins the election. The opposition, on the other hand, wants to bring the country into the European Union. Georgia is a candidate for EU membership, but the process is on hold due to a series of recently passed restrictive laws.