“I would definitely have changed my position if I had seen evidence confirming fraud by now. I haven’t seen such evidence, and, excuse me, but I don’t believe nonsense pulled out of thin air,” Public Defender Levan Ioseliani stated his position regarding the legitimacy of the parliamentary elections in Georgia in an interview with TV Pirveli.

Ioseliani’s comments come in response to societal and political criticism regarding the perception of election fraud, especially following the release of interim information by the Prosecutor’s Office about a possible election fraud investigation.

Facing scrutiny for his assessment of the elections, the Public Defender addressed the question of whether he had altered his position on the legitimacy of the electoral process in light of the allegations. According to Ioseliani, those who observed the elections have not provided sufficient evidence to substantiate claims of widespread fraud affecting as many as 300,000 votes.

“Out of 100,000 people who allegedly had their ID cards taken away, not one has come to me to this day,” he stated, underscoring his lack of confidence in the claims being made.

“The infrastructure needed for falsifying 300,000 votes and what this involves is very clear to me. So, excuse me, but I don’t believe such nonsense pulled out of thin air. This is my position as a citizen.”

While acknowledging that he visited several polling stations in Marneuli, Ioseliani clarified that he did not systematically observe the elections and thus could not draw definitive conclusions.

“I don’t have a mandate to observe elections. I didn’t observe the elections. I didn’t have representatives at 3,000 polling stations,” he explained.

“Those who had representatives and the opportunity have not, in my opinion, presented solid evidence of fraud that would warrant the assertion that 300,000 votes were falsified.”

Further articulating his stance, Ioseliani noted that the Public Defender’s Office actively reached out to all political parties, requesting information regarding any alleged election fraud.

“We personally contacted every party—my deputies were calling them—and asked them to provide information, but no one provided any,” he lamented. He also pointed out the discrepancy between the number of complaints filed and the alleged magnitude of the fraud, asking, “If they had evidence, why didn’t they write more than 11 complaints about fraud across 3,000 polling stations? If they had it, weren’t they there throughout the day?”

He urged anyone with substantive evidence to come forward, stating, “If such evidence exists, first of all not to me, but they should provide it to the public. Then show me these materials, evidence and fine, I’ll sit down with you and say this is like this, this is like that. Let’s say they don’t trust me; let them provide it to whoever they do trust.”

The Prosecutor General’s Office of Georgia has recently released interim findings from its investigation into possible election fraud.

According to the office, nearly 800 investigative and procedural actions have been conducted thus far, including various investigative experiments carried out with the involvement of foreign experts. The Prosecutor’s Office reported that during court interrogations, many witnesses could not provide any concrete evidence to support the claims of fraud. Instead, their testimonies relied on unverified information from third parties. Some witnesses indicated that their statements regarding specific instances of election fraud were intended as preventive measures.

Moreover, the agency confirmed that investigative experiments and questioning of international experts ruled out the possibility of any voter casting repeated or multiple votes, further complicating claims of widespread electoral malpractice.