Georgian NGOs: consideration of complaints on election outcomes is not less important than the election itself

The consideration of the complaints related to the election and tabulation of the final results of the election in Georgia (tabulation of votes by additional lists among them) are the same important steps of the electoral process like the pre-election period and the voting day.

This is the topic of the statement disseminated today by the media centre of three Georgian NGOs: the "Association of Young Journalists of Georgia", "International Society of Fair Elections and Democracy" and "International Transparency - Georgia", the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

"In our statement dated January 7, we called on the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) to hold all these steps - tabulation of votes by additional lists, summing up the totals and consideration of complaints - under complete defence of the law and full transparency. Despite all that, the developments after January 7 have clearly shown that the CEC had approached their duties with lack of responsibility: tabulation of votes by additional lists and summing up of the totals in general were conducted chaotically and with violations of the law. <...> The CEC refused, by referring to procedural discrepancies, to consider a significant number of complaints," the statement runs.