Kharatishvili Is Connected with Noisy Elections in Technical Univerisity

Zurab Kharatishvili, nominated by the president as a candidate for the CEC chairperson, was connected with noisy elections of the rector at the Technical University of Georgia. The elections were held in 2007 which was won by Archil Motsonelidze, the favorite person of the government and National Party.

Particularly interesting events happened in the election commission. During the election process, commission members and chairperson were changed several times. More precisely, initially Anzor Shavgulidze was chairperson of the commission but later he resigned together with several members. After that, former head of the NGO New Generation – New Initiative Koki Ionatamishvili occupied the position of the chairperson. However, according to the ministry of education, the commission members changed together with the chairperson and finally the elections were held by Zurab Kharatishvili.

The most interesting fact is that all these events happened on the election day. As a result of the elections, Archil Motsonelidze became the rector of the university who was supported by the government. One of the leaders of the National Movement Davit Kirkitadze did his best to support him during the elections. Opposition parties and part of students assessed the elections as fraud and started to criticize the government.

On January 13, Mikheil Saakashvili nominated Zurab Kharatishvili as one of the candidates for the CEC chairperson. He was proposed by the foundation “Alpe”. Besides Kharatishvili, other candidates are Otar Sichinava and Levan Tarkhnishvili.

News Agency “Pirveli”