Georgian police make arrests for election fraud
Two people have been arrested over an alleged election violation at a polling station in Georgia following this weekend’s parliamentary vote, the Internal Affairs Ministry reported on Thursday.
The police have detained the suspects on charges of ballot-stuffing during the vote on Saturday. They face up to two years in prison if convicted.
“The investigation established that during the elections of the Parliament of Georgia on October 26, 2024, in the election precinct No. 69 of the village of Saddhuli, Marneuli municipality, the defendants placed ballot papers in the box in violation of the law,” the ministry said in a statement.
The voting was stopped at the polling station following the incident, and the results of the voting were declared invalid.
The ruling Georgian Dream party, which seeks to build stable relations with Russia, secured nearly 54% of the vote in the country’s parliamentary elections, official tallies have shown. Opposition parties, along with the country’s pro-Western president, Salome Zourabichvili, have refused to recognize the results and have called for mass protests.
Zourabichvili claimed that the opposition parties actually won, accusing Georgian Dream of rigging the parliamentary vote, without providing specific examples.
The French-born politician described the election as a “Russian special operation.” Along with other politicians, Zourabichvili has demanded a new election organized under international supervision rather than by the Georgian Central Election Commission.
International observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have “positively assessed the elections” and found no significant violations.
Georgia’s prosecutor’s office subsequently launched a probe into the alleged election fraud claims and summoned Zourabichvili to appear on Thursday to provide evidence on the matter, though she has refused.
