Giorgadze disqualified from parliamentary elections

Georgia's Supreme Court has ruled against representatives of the Justice Party (leaders: Igor Giorgadze and Maia Topuria) demanding that Giorgadze, wanted by Interpol, should be restored on the party's list of candidates for the parliamentary elections on March 28.

Candidate No. 1 on the Justice Party's list of candidates, Giorgadze was struck off the list by Georgia's Central Electoral Commission (CEC) on March 2.

"Just one candidacy, that of Igor Giorgadze, was struck off the entire list, because he had not lived in Georgia in the past two years according to the Interior Ministry, while this is required to register a parliamentary candidate," Georgii Mamulashvili, a CEC official, told News Georgia on March 8.

Giorgadze, a former Georgian security chief wanted by Interpol on a charge of organizing a terrorist act against ex-president Eduard Shevardnadze, had tried to run for the Georgian parliament in the proportional and majority system parliamentary elections on November 2, 2003.

His application for registration as a majority system candidate mentioned Dzagina, Znaur district, South Ossetia, as his residence. Meanwhile, the papers he submitted to the CEC over the entire period of preparation for the elections mentioned several different residences, so the CEC disqualified him from the elections.

Igor Giorgadze had also tried to take part in the extraordinary presidential election in Georgia on January 4, 2004, but the CEC again disqualified him because he had not lived in Georgia over the past years.