Parliament official confronts US Congressman Joe Wilson for failing to condemn sham elections in Russian-occupied Abkhazia

Nikoloz Samkharadze, the Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Georgian Parliament, on Friday criticised United States Congressman Joe Wilson for failing to condemn the sham elections held last Sunday in Georgia’s Russian-occupied region of Abkhazia while questioning the legitimacy of Georgia’s October parliamentary elections.

The response came after ​​in his remarks at a meeting of the Political and Security Committee of the Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, Wilson urged his counterparts to demand new elections in Georgia and cease regular interactions with the ruling Georgian Dream party “until they comply with certain demands”.

Samkharadze rejected the address, stating that foreign politicians including Wilson were refusing to recognise the results of the parliamentary elections held last October and continued to spread “unverified allegations and misinformation”.

“Mr. Wilson, if your concerns were genuine, you would have also condemned the fake elections held in the occupied region of Abkhazia”, he told the lawmaker.

On the elections in Georgia, Samkharadze said despite the vote having been “conducted in a politically pluralistic environment, with the implementation of transparent electronic voting technologies, and significantly better [organisation] than [in] previous elections, a group of foreign politicians, including Mr. Wilson, have refused to recognise the results and continued to disseminate completely unverified accusations and disinformation”.

He also highlighted that an unspecified member of the European Parliament had accused the OSCE of being influenced by “regimes that do not support free and fair elections”.

Samkharadze stressed that such statements were “not only damaging the OSCE’s reputation and integrity” but also demonstrated a “complete disregard for the will of the Georgian people”.

Samkharadze expressed “deep concern” over pressure allegedly exerted on the OSCE election observer mission in Georgia by “certain foreign political groups” he said were “attempting to influence the content” of the Organisation’s final report over the elections and interfere in Georgia’s electoral process.

He emphasised the importance of “upholding international legal principles” and urged “all parties to respect the sovereign rights of the Georgian people”.