Ambassador Degnan says United States has “full confidence” in election watchdog
In her comments over the matter, Degnan stressed the organisation had been “transparent” about the mistake in the calculations as soon as they were able to confirm it. Photo: US Embassy in Tbilisi
Tweet 
Share
Kelly Degnan, the United States Ambassador to Georgia, on Wednesday vowed support for the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy, a Georgian-based election watchdog, by saying it was a “highly respected” and experienced election monitoring organisation.
Degnan was reacting to the statement of Irakli Kobakhidze, the Chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party, who on Tuesday said ISFED had been “actively involved in rigging” the parallel vote tabulation during the 2020 Parliamentary elections in the country.
The United States has full confidence in ISFED. It’s a highly respected and experienced election monitoring organisation. [...] In fact, as soon as ISFED confirmed that there had been a parallel vote tabulation miscalculation, which was determined to be an insignificant statistical measure, ISFED informed the public immediately and released the information fully. That is why we have full confidence in ISFED as a professional election monitoring organisation”, Degnan said.
In her comments over the matter, Degnan stressed the organisation had been “transparent” about the mistake in the calculations as soon as they were able to confirm it.
And that is why it is so important that ISFED and other civil society organisations - that have expertise in election monitoring and conducting elections - are able to participate in Georgia’s electoral reform working groups”, she continued.
“That’s what the European Commission encouraged: an inclusive process that ensured that all stakeholders had a chance to contribute to improving Georgia’s electoral system”, she concluded in her comments.
Kobakhidze on Thursday noted ISFED’s “fake data” had become “one of the main pillars of the domestic radical opposition” in the latter’s questioning of the legitimacy of the elections.
“[T]he statement of the Embassy [in support of the organisation] is shocking for us. ISFED was actively involved in rigging the parallel vote tabulation [in 2020], which was the most serious fact”, the GD official said.