Chronicles :

The Human Rights Centre Hardly Managed to Evacuate Observers from Gori Polling Stations

Saba Tsitsikashvili, Gori

(Situation between 17:00 – 20:00) – “Please, help… are not you human?” – observers and election commission members from Gori villages were asking for help. At the election day, at the most polling stations counting of the ballots have been started by 8 p.m. without participation of the opposition parties. Before 8 p.m. the Human Rights Centre met lots of crying women and scared people in the villages of Gori district asking for taking them from that territory.

There are two polling stations in Karaleti (Gori district). Carousel is common here. People were moving from one polling station to another easily and openly. They even confronted those people who were protesting it – it’s my village and I am free to vote wherever I want.

Coming to Karaleti, there was a mass in the rooms. Nino Sabashvili, the member of the “Youth Republican Union” demanded the people without any IDs to leave the room. On the response, one of the strange persons pushed her and broke the photo camera.

In the village Plavisman, Inga Bakhtadze, the representative of the Republican Party was in injured verbally as well as physically. She was not allowed to file an appeal. Bakhtadze was to leave the station.

In the village Tirdznisi, the majoritarian candidate Giorgi Mosidze argued with the PEC members. Mosidze was concerned with the fact of beating their member Zurab Kareli, whose mobile was taken off.

At the second polling station, Lika Vardzelashvili, the representative of the Human Rights Center and the representative of “Fair Elections” were forced to delete the photos from their mobiles. The photos described the process of stuffing ballots in the box.

At this station, 510 voters were observed by 12 o’clock in the morning. Kakha Matiashvili, the observer of the United Opposition who is from Tbilisi was aking to take him to Gori: “it has been three hours passed since I called and asked my colleagues to come and take me from here. They has not managed yet to come. I am shocked, what I have witnessed here I have not seen anywhere else. Please take me from here, I am not going to stay here, I do not want my family to be killed”- Kakha Matiashvili told us. Finally Giorgi Mosidze took him from the station to Gori.
The representative of Multinational Georgia Arina Tavakarashvili contacted me and told that their representative was forced to leave the station.
Observers were under unbearable pressure at almost every polling station.