Georgian crisis caused by poor quality of voters' lists

The Georgian crisis was caused by poor quality of preparation of voters' lists, Sergei Mironov, the chairman of the council of the Inter-parliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States and speaker of the Federation council (the upper house of the Russian parliament) said in St. Petersburg on Saturday.

"In addition to violations at polling stations, our Georgian colleagues, evidently, faced the big problem of organising the elections and what happened, in particular, was the direct consequence of poor quality of preparation of voters' lists as at some polling stations hundreds of people who had not been included into the lists came to vote," Mironov said.

According to Mironov, the situation in Georgia is, undoubtedly, a matter of concern for the Inter-parliamentary Assembly though any parliamentary consultations on the crisis, in particular, within the framework of the "Caucasian quartet" (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia) are possible only at the request of the Georgian parliament's speaker.

"It is Georgia's domestic affair and if the Georgian side requests consideration of that issue within the "Caucasian quarter" we will gladly do that but such request was not received. Moreover, the elections are over, the new parliament has not been formed yet, its leadership is not elected and such request is impossible," Mironov stressed.