PACE President ‘deeply regrets’ Georgia’s ex-president Saakashvili’s ‘unsubstantiated attacks’ on observation mission head

“I deeply regret the unsubstantiated attacks by certain political representatives in Georgia on the personal integrity of the Chairman of the delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) that observed elections here”, PACE President Rik Daems has announced.

His statement followed one released by ex-President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili who has recently called the PACE election observation mission head Tiny Kox a ‘Russian spy’.

• Ex-President Saakashvili calls PACE observation mission head Kox a Russian spy, ruling party calls statement ‘alarming, anti-western’

Rik Daems said the statements of the PACE election observation mission head ‘reflect the position of the PACE delegation as such’ and were made jointly with their partners in the international election observation mission. 

While anyone is free to disagree with their findings and conclusions, the integrity of the international observation mission cannot be questioned”, Rik Daems said. 

I therefore call upon all political stakeholders to refrain from such baseless allegations,” Mr Daems concluded.”, he added.

Parliamentary elections were held in Georgia on October 31; however, run-offs were held at 17 majoritarian constituencies as none of the candidates managed to oevrome the mandatory threthold in the first round of elections. Photo: Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge

Member of the Swedish Parliament and former Second Deputy Speaker of the Riksdag Björn Söder has also stated that Mikheil Saakashvili has made ‘some false claims in the media about the role of these organizations and their election monitoring missions that require rebuttal’.

Saakashvili’s theory that Russia was somehow involved in, and directing these missions, is false and offensive to all Parliamentarians who commit our energy in support of the democratic processes across Europe”, he said. 

Stating that both OSCE and Council of Europe monitoring missions are non-partisan, Söder said Georgian elections ‘were not perfect’ but ‘overall the election process was conducting fairly and democratically and there should be no doubt about the result’.

• Int'l observers: parliamentary elections were competitive, fundamental freedoms were respected

A nine-member PACE delegation led by Tiny Kox (Netherlands, UEL) travelled to Georgia from 29 October to 1 November to observe the conduct of the October 31 parliamentary elections. 

At the press conference following the election day, Kox referred to opposition rallies that to challenge immediately the results after the elections is not the best signal of a mature democracy.