Press Release

Tetritskaro District Court granted the complaint of HRC and held the chairperson of the polling station N23 of Tetritskaro election district N26 and Tetritskaro mayoral candidate from the Georgian Dream party as offenders fining them with  GEL 2,000 each. The court also found 5 members of the same precinct election commission as offenders and issued a reprimand as an administrative sanction against them. 

 

The complaint of HRC concerned the violation of pre-election campaigning rules in Tetritskaro election district N26 by Tetritskaro mayoral candidate (from Georgian Dream) Giorgi Tsiklauri and the chairperson of polling station N23 of the same election district, as well as by the members of the same election commission of the polling station.  

 

In particular, on September 1 of the current year, in village Kosalari of Tetritskaro Municipality, Giorgi Tsiklauri, the mayoral candidate together with the principal of the public school of village Kosalari and the teachers of the same school, who at the same time are the chairperson of the precinct election commission and members of the same precinct election commission respectively,  met with the voters of village Kosalari for the purpose of pre-election campaigning, which constitutes a forbidden action under Articles 45 and 48 of the Election Code.

 

Evidence of this fact, within the pre-election monitoring,  was obtained by HRC from the official Facebook page of Giorgi Tsiklauri where the photos depicting the meeting of the pre-election campaign were shared. The photographic material portrayed the mayoral candidate, further, Goderdzi Chankseliani, an MP  from the Georgian Dream party, and the chairperson and members of the precinct election commission N23. 

 

Within the pre-election monitoring, the long-term observer of HRC appealed the fact to district election commission N26 and claimed that the mayoral candidate, and the chairperson of precinct election commission N23, and the members of the election commission must be held as offenders. The chairperson of district election commission N26 rejected the complaint of the observer, as the chairperson of the precinct election commission and the members of the same commission submitted the statements p in the process of hearing the complaint reading that they were in the village at a funeral from where they accidentally found their way to a meeting and discovered, to their surprise, that they were at the pre-election campaign meeting.  According to the statements, they also unexpectedly realized that the electioneering campaign took place at the meeting, which is why they left the meeting soon. Such statements failed to comply with the photographic material which was attached to the complaint as evidence. 

 

The long-term observer of HRC appealed the decision of the district election commission to Tetritskaro District Court with the same claims. Tetritskaro District Court heard the appeal on September 27, 2021, and granted the complaint. Consequently,  the court issued two reports of administrative offense against the offenders, according to which Tetritskaro mayoral candidate Giorgi Tsiklauri was held as an offender and was fined him with GEL 2,000. Further, the court held the chairperson of precinct election commission N23 as an offender and fined him with GEL 2,000 under the report of administrative offense. While, against the members of the commission,  the court issued a reprimand as an administrative sanction.