Georgian presidential race: Mikhail Saakashvili first to register officially

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Georgia’s central election committee has officially registered Dec 6 a first candidate for Georgian presidency, leader of the United National Movement Mikhail Saakashvili, REGNUM reports citing Georgian TV channels. The decision to register Saakashvili was taken after authenticity of voters’ signatures collected to support him was checked. A total of 205,555 signatures are reported to be collected, of which 69,000 were added today.

At 18.00 local time Dec 6, the Georgian CEC completed admission of forms with signatures of supporters of Georgian presidential contenders. The signature lists were submitted to the CEC by parties or individual groups of 13 or 19 candidates who had applied to CEC for the forms (four of them later decided to withdraw their candidacies). Now CEC has to countercheck the lists and officially register those who managed to collect at least 50,000 signatures. Those who will fall short of the number will be given two additional days to gather more signatures. According to the CEC schedule, the registration will continue until Dec 11. For the following three days, CEC will be handing candidates special certificates, and for the next five days a fund of election campaigns will be established. Official presidential candidates’ lists are expected to be published Dec 12.