After the Revolution

Mikheil Saakashvili was sworn in as president of Georgia on Jan. 20 after an election internationally recognized as flawed but generally accepted as valid.

The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) published a review of the electoral process specifying a number of problems.

• The voter turn-out was much higher than expected in some areas, with many names being added in the last hours of voting. About 85,000 names were added to additional voters’ lists the day of the election.
• The Central Election Commission of Georgia did not apply uniform procedures in determining the validity of ballots cast by voters added to additional voters’ lists on election day.
• The election administration did not adequately investigate the approximately 1,000 complaints of irregularity in voting, counting and tabulation of election results.

If the results of the election were disputed, the slim margin that prevented a run-off vote between Saakashvili and opponent Levan Gachechiladze could disappear.

The OSCE observed the vote count at 180 locations and assessed 23 percent of those counts as “bad” or “very bad.” Observers reported witnessing tampering with the results at 8 percent of counting stations observed. In 940 of the 3,511 stations, the number of voters who visited did not match the number of valid and invalid ballots.