Ruling party criticizes interim election reports of local observing organisations

The ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party has criticised interim election reports of Transparency International Georgia (TI Georgia), Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) and International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) ahead of the October 2 municipal elections. 

The GD says that interim reports by the organisations cover several incidents which took place before the official launch of the pre-election campaigning. 

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The incidents or activities which took place before August 3, before the official launch of pre-election campaigning, must not be connected with the upcoming race,” GD MP Shalva Papuashvili stated earlier today. 

Papuashvili said that ‘there is a tendency’ in the interim reports to say that ‘violations observed are not violations, but are bad practices which damage the election environment.’ 

Such notes are confusing and hard for readers to differentiate whether an incident is a violation of law or just does not correspond to the organisation’s inner standards,” Papuashvili said. 

He also stated that interim reports cover the cases ‘which are biased or are based on an interested party, without providing any evidence.’ 

Papuashvili urged the organisations to remove the cases from their reports which were evidenced were not violations.