US Ambassador Degnan calls for calm atmosphere to enable voters to cast their votes safely
Kelly Degnan said at polling stations she has visited the environment was calm, but attacks on media have been reported in some other places. Photo: Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge
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United States Ambassador to Georgia Kelly Degnan, who is ‘happy to see voters coming out and casting their votes’ calls for a calm atmosphere on Election Day.
Degnan told journalists at the Krtsanisi constituency in Tbilisi that at the places she has visited the environment was calm, while the precincts have been well organised and well administered.
However, the embassy has people all over Georgia, who are seeing very different things in some parts of the country.
They have reported attacks on the media, on your colleagues, on election observers who have been blocked from being able to go into the precincts which is their job. There’s obviously been some physical fights of parties against each other. I just urge, please, a calm atmosphere for the remainder of this day so that voters can come out safely and cast their votes”, she said.
Kelly Degnan further thanked everyone working at the precinct and the district level, as well as the police ‘who are trying to support a calm environment, a well-organised environment’.
Ambassador’s Remarks to Media at Krtsanisi Precinct 32 https://t.co/Rrs9akIOq6
— U.S. Embassy Tbilisi (@usingeo) October 30, 2021
Hoping that people will come out and vote, the US Ambassador said ‘these elections are also an opportunity to see whether the election reforms that were adopted last summer are working’.
The election reforms were negotiated by Georgia’s political leaders. It was a very successful example of leaders from very different parties, sometimes quite adversarial parties, coming together and making the law better for Georgia’s electoral process and I would say that the new parties, the smaller parties, played an extremely important role in improving the electoral process here”, she stated.
Ambassador Degnan believes that many of the improvements that are working well this time are the result of input from leaders of some of the smaller parties, which shows ‘what an important role this variety of parties can play in strengthening Georgia’s electoral process’.
Georgia is holding municipal run-offs today where a total of 2,088,722 voters, including 1,002,525 in Tbilisi are eligible to elect 20 mayors and 42 majoritarian members of the City Councils (Sakrebulos).
Transparency International (TI) Georgia says that its observers have recorded 50 minor and serious violations during today’s municipal election run-offs, as of 13:30.
The former president of Georgia Giorgi Margvelashvili has cast his ballot in today’s run-off municipal elections, saying he voted for ‘oppositional changes’ and a candidate from ‘his neighborhood.' Margvelashvili also encouraged fellow citizens to go out and vote as ‘the weather is quite nice and warm.’
Georgian is holding municipal run-offs in 20 of 64 election constituencies, including all five big cities of Georgia - Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Rustavi, Batumi and Poti. A total of 2,088,722 registered voters can elect mayors and city council (Sakrebulo) members at 1,830 polling stations countrywide.
Former prime minister of and leader of For Georgia political party Giorgi Gakharia has cast his ballot in today’s municipal run-offs, and said he voted ‘for Georgia,’ but not for any candidate. Gakharia explained that by coming to the run-offs, he performed his ‘civilian duty.’