Tianeti Mayoral Candidate plans to appeal to court
By Tea Mariamidze
Tuesday, October 24
The Tianeti Mayoral candidate Tamaz Mechauri from the non-parliamentary opposition party, For United Georgia, is going to challenge the election results in court.
Mechiauri does not trust the results announced by the Central Election Commission (CEC) in the Tianeti district, which reads that Mechiauri received 3077 votes, while the candidate of the ruling Georgian Dream party (GD), Lela Kitesashvili, received just four votes more and took the leading position.
Mechiauri accuses the CEC of adding four votes to Kitesashvili to win the election upon the request of GD.
“I have one vote more than the ruling party candidate but the CEC changed the results. It is very obvious,” he stated.
If Mechiauri manages to gain the victory, it will be the only case in the country when the ruling party loses the first round of elections.
As a former member of GD, Mechiauri, caused controversy when he openly criticized NATO drills in Georgia in May 2016, saying they would anger Russia. For his anti-Western and Russian-affiliated comments, Mechiauri received an official complaint in early May from Prime Minister, Giorgi Kvirikashvili, who noted that the member of GD was not in line with the course adopted by the ruling GD coalition.
After this, Mechiauri left Georgian Dream party in late May, adding he would remain a member of the GD faction and head of the financial-budgetary committee of Parliament.
In June 2016, he created a new political party, For United Georgia, with a composer Jemal Sepiashvili and former Deputy State Minister on Diaspora Issues, Sandro Bregadze.
