Georgia Begins Recounting Votes at Selected Polling Stations Amid Election Dispute

Following a controversial parliamentary election in Georgia, the central election commission announced on Tuesday that a partial recount of the votes will take place. The ruling Georgian Dream party reportedly received approximately 54% of the votes in the elections held on Saturday. However, this outcome was contested by pro-Western opposition parties and the country's president, leading to thousands of people protesting in Tbilisi on Monday.

The call for a recount came amidst international concerns. The European Union, NATO, and the United States have urged for a comprehensive investigation into allegations of electoral fraud, including vote-buying, voter intimidation, and ballot stuffing. These concerns were expressed by observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and other groups.

In response to these allegations, the election commission decided to recount votes in five randomly selected precincts from each of Georgia's 84 electoral districts. This accounts for approximately 14% of all precincts. Georgian legislation allows for such a recount to take place within six days after the election, regardless of whether there are claims of voting irregularities.

To ensure transparency, the commission invited all authorized representatives to observe the recount process. However, it did not specify when the results of the recount will be made public.

Initial results indicated that the Georgian Dream party received 1.12 million votes, which is over 335,000 more than the combined votes of the four main opposition parties. While the party won by a significant margin in some rural areas, it did not perform as strongly in Tbilisi and other major cities.

The Georgian monitoring coalition My Vote reported finding significant evidence of "large-scale election fraud." This evidence includes photographs, videos, and testimonies from their observers.

The coalition reported over 900 cases of voting irregularities in more than one-third of the country's polling stations, and these findings are being submitted to the election commission.