Pre-2011 ID cards to lose legal validity across Georgia - ruling party head

The party official specified the latter comment by said the number of voters eligible to cast votes in the elections without electronic IDs would be between 500 and 1000. Photo: Georgian Dream Press Office

Agenda.ge, 24 Nov 2023 - 19:21, Tbilisi,Georgia

Irakli Kobakhidze, the head of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Friday said all identification cards issued before 2011, prior to the introduction of electronic IDs across the country, would lose their legal validity.

In his comments to the media, Kobakhidze said individuals without the current electronic IDs would be able to vote for next year’s parliamentary elections, but added the number of these cards would be “kept to a minimum”.

The party official specified the latter comment by said the number of voters eligible to cast votes in the elections without electronic IDs would be between 500 and 1000.

His comments followed the Georgian Parliament’s decision last week that approved with its first reading amendments proposed by opposition MP Pridon Injia to allow use of non-electronic IDs for the elections.

The proposal was backed by Public Defender Levan Ioseliani, who said the right of citizens to participate in elections “cannot be limited” and added voters “should participate with the [identification] documents they have”. He also urged the public to replace non-electronic IDs with modern identification documents.