TBILISI, November 1. /TASS/. Georgia’s Marneuli Magistrate Court has ordered that two people charged with organizing ballot-stuffing at a polling station in the recent parliamentary election be taken into custody, Judge Gvantsa Chikovani announced.
"The court hereby upholds the request by Tornike Kapanadze, a prosecutor at the Marneuli District Prosecutor’s Office, that suspect Rovshan Iskandarov be taken into custody," she said. The second suspect has also been taken into custody.
On Thursday, the Georgian Interior Ministry said in a statement that two people had been detained for ballot-stuffing at the 69th polling station in the Marneuli District. The offense is punishable with a prison term of up to two years.
Georgia held its parliamentary elections on October 26. According to the Central Election Commission, the ruling Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party got 54.08% of the vote, securing the right to form the government on its own. Four opposition parties cleared the five-percent threshold: the Coalition for Change gained 10.92% of the vote, the Unity-National Movement received 10.12%, Strong Georgia got 8.78%, and Gakharia for Georgia garnered 7.76%.
All opposition parties that have entered parliament refuse to recognize the results of the elections, so does the Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili. She claims that Central Election Commission data is rigged and in reality, the opposition received more votes than the Georgian Dream party and therefore has the majority of seats in parliament.