Gov’t doing “everything” to ensure “fair” 2024 elections - Georgian PM

Irakli Kobakhidze, the Georgian Prime Minister, on Tuesday said the Government was doing “everything” to ensure “fair” parliamentary elections in October, highlighting “fundamental” changes in legislation and introduction of an electronic system of voting, vote counting and voter registration.

Kobakhidze also said a “very important legislative change” regarding the Central Election Commission would be implemented today to “break the deadlock” in the body that followed the European Union-mediated April 19, 2020 agreement between the Government and the opposition which resolved a six-month political crisis in the country following the parliamentary elections and proposed large-scale electoral and judiciary reforms.

The Commission is facing a deadlock. Its Chair and two members were elected two years ago for a term of six months, but their term of office has been extended because new members have not been elected”, the Government head said.

[President] Salome Zourabichvili [who on March 5 vetoed amendments to the election code that stipulated transfer of the power to elect the Chair and members of the Central Election Commission to the President if the legislative body failed to elect them in two attempts] and the radical opposition want the CEC to remain in a deadlock - of course, the parliamentary majority will not have this desire, therefore, there is naturally no alternative to overcoming the veto. We cannot leave the CEC in a deadlock”, he added. The ruling party is planning to discuss the President's notes on her veto of the changes to the election code at a Parliament session today. The Judicial Matters Committee of the legislative body rejected Zourabichvili's veto at an earlier hearing of the amendments.

The PM also said it was “necessary” to overcome the presidential veto in order to ensure free and fair elections, one of the nine priorities outlined by the European Union for Georgia before granting the country the membership candidate status.

Kobakhidze was also asked on his discussion in a meeting behind closed doors with Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO Secretary General who was in official visit in Tbilisi on Monday, and claims the PM had been “given assignments to hold free and fair parliamentary elections”, and rejected it by saying “Georgia has been an independent state since the 1990s, and no one can give Georgia assignments, including not a single friend or partner”.

He added the Government was “ready to listen and take into account” advice and recommendations by partners.