NGO Fair Elections on January 4 presidential elections

We call your attention to the preliminary statement by the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) on the presidential elections of January 4, 2004. ISFED, or just Fair Elections as it is often called, is one of the largest Georgian NGOs. Non partisan election monitoring is one of its main activities.

For the January 4 presidential elections in Georgia, Fair Elections deployed observers to more than 2 550 polling stations in every region of the country.

Fair Elections would like to express its gratitude to all of the observers, for the commitment made in Fair Elections' observation mission and for the provided data, which enabled the organization to make qualitative as well as quantitative assessment of elections. In defiance of the particular facts hindering observers activities, the observation mission of Fair Elections carried out monitoring of all election procedures, thus encouraging the protection of each vote cast on election day and the overall fairness of elections. We would like to thank the whole society, the entire efforts of which ensured the proper conduct of elections.

Fair Elections' preliminary assessment of the election day is based on the data that we have received from our observers in the field. The results of our observation force us to conclude that the facts of voters' disenfranchisement were not observed on January 4. The new rule of voters' list formation-voters' registration- did not result in the problems related to fraudulent lists, so traditional for Georgian previous electoral experience.

However, the concerns were caused by the voters' lists issue in Ajara, where the pre-election registration was not conducted. According to the decision made by the Central Election Commission the number of registered voters' on election day was considered as total number of voters in Ajara. As reported by Fair Elections' observers, the precinct election commissions of Ajara were using the data of voters' registered on election day, as well as the lists of November 2 parliamentary elections, which were posted at the polling stations. Therefore the turnout calculated by Fair Elections does not include the data from Ajara.

The proper administration of elections and therefore activities of election administrations became one of the major targets of the monitoring, since carrying out the voters' registration process, as well as other electoral procedures were under the direct responsibility of the election administration.

Except of particular facts the election administrations acted according to the law. However particular administrative failures were still observed, due to the incompetence of the commission members.

In several cases the significant violations of election law occurred as well, which cannot merely be understood as administrative failure, for instance ballot staffing, absence of marking procedures, ejection of observers from the polling stations. However aforementioned violations were not numerous.

The data collected by Fair Elections enables us to say that the government and election administration demonstrated their will and readiness to ensure fair and legitimate conduct of elections. In the majority of cases not only the higher-level election commissions, but the precinct election commissions reacted in a fast and effective way to the violations observed by Fair Elections. In most cases facts of violations pointed by observers were addressed by election administrations.

Fair Elections observers collected data that is sufficient in amount and quality for us to declare that the voters' turnout for January 4 presidential elections was quite high. According to our data the turnout for 12.00 was around 35%, and around 70% (Ajara excluded) for 17.00. Our data are projecting the voters' turnout of more than 85% (Ajara excluded).

As a result, Fair Elections is able to report that our parallel vote and parallel turnout tabulations provide not only for qualitative judgments, but also statistically precise quantitative judgments on the results of the elections. These results reflect the will expressed by the Georgian voters on January 4 presidential elections.  Fair Elections' parallel vote tabulation results are listed below:

• Roin Liparteliani - 00.24%
• Kartlos Gharibashvili - 00.16%
• Zurab Kelekhsashvili - 00.07%
• Teimuraz Shashiashvili - 01.93%
• Mikheil Saakashvili - 96.41%
• Zaza Sikharulidze - 00.22%
• votes cast against all candidates - 00.32%

Fair Elections will persist in monitoring the Central and District Election Commissions as they conduct tabulation and appeal review processes, in an effort to correct the violations and irregularities evident on election day and to have the will of voters' expressed on January 4 reflected in the official results.

Fair Elections considers that the Central Election Commission has to maintain the credibility expressed by the Georgian citizens, therefore the Central Election Commission must implement the following:

• The complaints filed with the election administrations should be reviewed and violations relating to the elections should be addressed.
• The counting and tabulation has to be conducted according to the law, and the transparency of this process should be ensured.
• The final results must reflect the will of Georgian voters as it was expressed on January 4.

Tbilisi, January 5, 2004