Parliament Speaker says citizen votes “need to be protected” from opposition UNM, “satellite” domestic NGOs

Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Thursday said votes of citizens in the general elections in October “need to be protected” from the opposition United National Movement party and its “satellite” domestic non-governmental organisations.

In his remarks, Papuashvili stressed the Georgian Government would “not allow” NGOs to “repeat the events” of the 2020 parliamentary elections and “mislead the public with false conclusions”, in reference to the controversy of wrong vote counting release by ISFED following that year's elections. 

As for the UNM party [...] from what we have seen in 2020 [elections], the only one from whom votes of Georgian voters are to be protected is the UNM party and its satellite NGOs. By the way, it was directly reported in the conclusion of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe that there was activity of the partisan NGOs at the polling stations as well as in the pre-election period [in 2020]”, he said.

Papuashvili alleged some NGOs had “lost their credibility” after becoming “complicit in the disinformation campaign” about election rigging in 2020.

He also said a lack of transparency of NGO funding was “the biggest challenge” in the domestic NGO sector.