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Eurasia
November 30, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 22
peaceful rallies and demand snap parliamentary polls," Saakashvili, who was president at the time of the five-day Russo-Georgian War, said.
The defeated candidate Vashadze did not endorse the radical intervention from Saakashvili but an- nounced on a more moderate note that the United Opposition would make a statement on its future strategy on November 29. Declining to concede
to Zurabishvili, he added that he was awaiting the final official election result.
According to RFE/RL, after she voted, Zurabishvili told journalists: "My choice is a peaceful Georgia, my choice is a united Georgia, my choice is a calm Georgia and my choice is a smiley Georgia."
Some commentators said Zurabishvili may have exhausted her base in the first-round voting, prompting Georgian Dream and the country’s rich-
est man, Ivanishvili, to go to extraordinary lengths to deliver her more of the ruling coalition’s voters. Ten days ago allegations flew over the ‘buying of votes’ as news broke of the Cartu Foundation, con- trolled by Ivanishvili, buying a bundle of bad loans owed by small debtors worth GEL1.5bn ($560mn, equivalent to 3.5% of Georgia’s GDP).
Voting at most of the polling stations throughout Georgia was broadly in line with the procedures prescribed by the law, the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED)
said. However, outside of polling stations, the mobilisation of coordinators and supporters of Georgian Dream and of Zurabishvili was on a massive scale. They tracked voters who arrived in the precincts, in an approach that amounted to a continuation of “the infamous malpractice of attempting to influence voters’ will”, according to the NGO.