Parliament Speaker denounces European politicians for “ignoring” OSCE/ODIHR report on Georgia’s elections

Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Wednesday claimed while European politicians had said findings of the Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights would be “decisive” for their assessments of the parliamentary elections held in October in the country, "after the elections, everyone ignored this conclusion".

In his interview with Rustavi 2 TV channel, Papuashvili said the Georgian Government would take into account the recommendations in the OSCE/ODIHR report on the elections, for the upcoming local elections set to be held in the autumn.

This hysteria should calm down, and this calming down was done precisely through the OSCE/ODIHR report, which said that the five main allegations [by the opposition over election irregularities] were lies”, Papuashvili alleged.

“There are remarks and recommendations [in the report]. There are 28 recommendations now, while in [reports for the] 2020 [elections] there were 30 recommendations. Do you know what is special about this report? The OSCE/ODIHR for the first time criticised the President and said that she was violating the legislation by forming the Government, and so on”, he added.

“For the first time, it turned out in our report that the OSCE/ODIHR accused the President of violating the Constitution, going beyond the constitutional framework when she had created an election headquarters [against the ruling party]”, the Speaker claimed.

He further added “political corruption entrenched in the European Parliament” was a “separate problem”, assessing the EP’s resolutions regarding Georgia as “unjust”.