Georgia creates special safety protocol for foreign observers in October elections
The parliamentary elections will be held in Georgia at the end of October. Photo: Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge.
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Georgia has drafted a special safety protocol for foreign observers who will monitor the upcoming parliamentary elections in October, Georgian Parliament Speaker Archil Talakvadze stated earlier today.
The protocol will allow observers to safely arrive in Georgia and carry out their mission,” Talakvadze said.
Talakvadze stated that the observers will not be sent into quarantine and that they will have to register with a specially created online module.
We have already begun meetings with large observation organisations. We are expecting many observers for the elections,” Talakvadze said.
He said that the Central Election Commission is working with the Health Ministry of Georgia to produce a safety protocol for election day.
The elections in the autumn will be held in a different manner from preceding elections, with 120 MPs elected per a party-list based electoral system and the remaining 30 per a majoritarian electoral system.
The Georgian Dream ruling party is likely to receive 39 per cent of votes in the upcoming parliamentary elections in October, says the recently published US Edison Research’s polls, commissioned by Georgian channel Formula TV.
Ruling party MP, former parliament speaker Irakli Kobakhidze says that international observers will be able to monitor the autumn parliamentary elections in Georgia, responding to speculations that the government is ‘deliberately maintaining’ travel restrictions to create obstacles for international observers.
The ruling Georgian Dream party has released a statement earlier today, saying that Georgia’s ‘radical opposition’ chooses ‘anti-western’ statements and campaigns, while the choice of the Georgian people is 'to further consolidate Georgian democracy and to ensure the full realisation of Georgia's Western aspirations'.
With 136 votes in favour and five against, the Georgian parliament has passed an electoral bill establishing a more proportional electoral system in its first hearing today. The bill says that 120 seats in parliament will be distributed based on the votes received in proportional elections, while remaining 30 per the votes received in majoritarian elections.
The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has thanked the Georgian Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani for his official invitation to observe Georgia’s upcoming parliamentary elections on October 31. Secretary Pompeo said he appreciates ‘everything that the government of Georgia has done to encourage and facilitate the safe arrival of international observers’.
The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) has decided to limit its missions in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine to long-term observation based on ‘a shortfall in the number of short-term observers provided by OSCE states due to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated travel and health restrictions’.
The European Parliament will not send an election observation mission to Georgia for the October 31 parliamentary elections due to the pandemic.
The International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), an independent not-for-profit NGO, has published its second interim report on social media pre-election monitoring, which identified 66 unofficial, anonymous and false media Facebook pages which have been working during the campaign period to discredit political parties in an organised fashion.