Georgia: Public prosecutor investigates possible election fraud

After the controversial parliamentary election in Georgia, the country’s public prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into suspected voter fraud. In order to examine the allegations that the pro-Russian ruling party Georgian Dream did not win the election as officially announced, the government’s critical President Salome Zurabishvili was “summoned” for questioning on Thursday, the public prosecutor’s office said. It is assumed that the head of state has “evidence of possible forgery”.

After counting almost all votes, the electoral commission declared the ruling Georgian Dream party the winner with 53.9 percent of the votes. The pro-Western opposition alliance came to just under 37.7 percent.

The opposition accuses the government camp of having “stolen” its victory in the parliamentary elections on Saturday. She does not want to send representatives to the new parliament in protest. Western election observers such as those from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Council of Europe and the EU Parliament also expressed doubts about the official result.

On Monday evening, tens of thousands of opposition supporters took part in protests against the official election results, and President Zurabishvili also took part. The electoral commission then announced on Tuesday that it would recount the votes from around 14 percent of the polling stations nationwide, which were to be randomly selected, because of the allegations of manipulation.