On October 30, the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia issued a statement “regarding the initiation of an investigation into alleged election fraud.” The Prosecutor’s Office announces that the President of Georgia has been summoned to the investigative agency for “questioning” on October 31, based on the October 29 appeal from the Central Election Commission. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, “Salome Zourabichvili must possess evidence regarding possible fraud in the 2024 parliamentary elections.”
The Prosecutor’s statement was published two days after Russia’s Security Council Deputy Chairman (former president) Dmitry Medvedev’s October 28 post on Twitter, where he writes about the Georgian President’s non-acceptance of election results: “Standard practice in such cases is removal from office and arrest.”
The observer coalition “My Voice” spokesperson, Londa Toloraia, responded to this matter: “I cannot recall a case, having worked in investigative agencies and the prosecutor’s office for 15 years, where an investigation would begin from the top, rather than from an eyewitness.” According to her, they repeatedly urged investigative agencies before the elections to investigate facts indicating alleged crimes, which would have had a preventive effect to avoid systemic violations on election day, “however, there was no response to any {of these facts}”:
“The investigative agency should have initiated an investigation not today, but when the confiscation of ID cards began, when large amounts of personal data started falling into the ruling party’s hands. Therefore, under these conditions where there was no response to anything, clearly, this investigation which began after Medvedev’s statement, aimed at creating problems for the President of Georgia – is clearly not a legal process, it is absolutely a political process.”
The “My Vote” coalition monitored the pre-election period and election day at 1,131 polling stations opened nationwide, and today, October 30, the coalition submitted complaints demanding the nullification of results from 246 polling stations, where the number of registered voters totals 417,305. Two days earlier, the coalition published a statement about uncovering the main election fraud scheme, while the President of Georgia, Salome Zourabichvili, declared “I do not recognize these elections.”
