Georgian PM: OSCE/ODIHR report “fully reflects” pre-election environment, highlights “polarisation” as “only problem”

Irakli Kobakhidze, the head of the ruling Georgian Dream party's election staff and the Prime Minister of Georgia, on Saturday said an interim report of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, released on Friday, “fully reflects” the pre-election environment in the country ahead of the October 26 parliamentary elections, highlighting “polarisation” as the “only problem”.

“The interim report of the OSCE/ODIHR [...] is crucial for us. The only issue highlighted in this report, that everyone already knows, is polarisation, polarisation in the political spectrum and media”, Kobakhidze emphasised.

The PM called polarisation the “only systemic problem“, which he claimed would be overcome by the GD administration through the plan for declaring the collective United National Movement [the opposition UNM party and all its “satellite or successor” parties] unconstitutional, once a constitutional majority would be secured in the new Parliament.

The Head of the Government added that no “substantial flaws” were discovered in terms of the “free and competitive” elections, and urged everyone to “prepare for the election day”, predicting the ruling GD party’s victory.

Archil Gorduladze, the ruling GD party’s MP, on Friday highlighted the absence of “violence, vote buying, illegal use of administrative resources, and other systemic manipulations” from the report, adding it reflected the “positive progress in legal and practical developments concerning the voter list, electoral dispute resolution, and rights and registration of voters and candidates”.