NEWS

Ruling party dismisses accusations of forcing teachers to campaign in run up to elections

Ruling party MP Irakli Kadagishvili said that ISFED’s reports are biased. Photo: ISFED.

Agenda.ge, 19 Aug 2021 - 16:56, Tbilisi,Georgia

The ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party MP Irakli Kadagishvili has dismissed reports by the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) that the GD is forcing public school directors and teachers to campaign on their behalf in elections.

ISFED says that directors who refused to campaign for the ruling party in the 2020 parliamentary elections lost their jobs.

To influence directors the ruling party used the method of unplanned inspections in schools in 2018, while for the 2020 presidential elections the party used the possibility that the term of many directors were expiring that year (and their term would not be prolonged if they refused to campaign for the party),” ISFED said.

Kadagishvili said that ISFED’s reports are ‘always very politicized and biased’ and that the organisation will not be able to name ‘even two or three’ directors who would confirm the information.

He said that the information ‘is as incorrect as ISFED’s data for the parallel vote count’ in the 2020 parliamentary elections.

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