On 16 November, the office of the opposition United National Movement (UNM) majoritarian candidate Nika Melia was raided and burnt down.
A member of Melia's election headquarters Tamar Zerekidze said that stones were thrown at the headquarters and glass windows were smashed. A Molotov cocktail was also thrown, which resulted in a fire.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs stated that an investigation has been launched under Article 187 of the Criminal Code, which stipulates damage or destruction of an item. The member of the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) political party Beka Davituliani stated that whoever was behind the burning of Melia’s office would definitely be held strictly accountable for his actions.
Two days earlier, the second round of negotiations between the GD and the opposition parties that passed the 1% mark in the elections were held. One of the leaders of the Lelo political party Badri Japaridze told journalists that the participants have agreed not to speak about the details of the meeting. However, he said that no significant progress has been achieved in this “difficult process.”
The mayor of Tbilisi and Secretary General of the GD Kakha Kaladze stated that repeated elections were not on the negotiation’s agenda. Claiming that opposition parties refused a recount, or any other suggestions made by the ruling party, Kaladze said it seems the opposition does not intend to find out the truth, but rather speculate that the elections were rigged.
Meanwhile, the leader of the opposition party Strategy Aghmashenebeli, Giorgi Vashadze, said that with the decision to finalise election protocols and declare the official date of majoritarian run offs, the Central Election Commission (CEC) has closed the opportunity for vote-recounting which has been among the suggestions of the ruling Georgian Dream.
The opposition European Georgia (EG) party announced that it would recall all its 1,922 commission members from 17 election constituencies where the second-round of elections will take place after the CEC’s decision. “We (EG) have made the decision to show that the elections are completely illegitimate. The Georgian Dream party must be alone not only in parliament, but elsewhere,” the party member Sergi Kapanadze said.
