Russian senator describes pre-election situation in Georgia as tense

The situation in the run-up to the parliamentary elections in Georgia is "quite tense", believes Konstantin Markelov heading a joint group of observers from the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly and Russia's Federation Council. The elections are to be held on the November 2.

In his telephone interview to RIA Novosti on Saturday, Konstantin Markelov said that the observers he leads had arrived in Georgia on Friday night and shortly after that held a series of meetings with representatives of parties and associations participating in the elections.

"We met with representatives of democratic parties, the party of Georgia's revival, and the pro-government bloc," he said. In addition, the observers visited the Georgian parliament where they met with the country's MPs.

"The situation is tense because there are still no veritable lists of voters," Markelov pointed out. He referred to the information supplied by the Georgian opposition parties, according to which the existing lists of voters have been rigged and contain 15-20 percent more entries than the actual number of voters in the country. The pro-government bloc has acknowledged veracity of these data," Markelov said.

With regard of this, members of the joint group of observers do not rule out a possibility that the results of the parliamentary elections may be rigged. Konstantin Markelov intends to "put relevant questions to Georgia's Central Electoral Commission". He meets representatives of the latter today.