The head of Georgia’s Central Election Commission, Geori Kalandarishvili, officially announced in the morning, 27 October, that the ruling Georgian Dream party had won the parliamentary elections with over 54% of the vote. The opposition, which favours a European direction, received over 37.5% of the vote. However, more and more voices are heard about offences recorded during the elections.
A Polish Radio correspondent reported from Tbilisi that international observers say that the Georgian population is deeply polarised and that there was tension on election day and undue pressure on voters and civil society.
A joint international mission of more than 529 observers from 42 countries issued a statement on a preliminary assessment of Georgia’s parliamentary elections.
‘A polarised media environment, instrumentalisation of private media to disseminate political propaganda affected impartial news coverage, preventing voters from making a conscious choice. The effectiveness of campaign finance oversight was undermined by limited enforcement and concerns about the impartiality and political instrumentalisation of the supervisory body,’ Pascal Allizard, head of the OSCE short-term observer mission, said during a press conference in the Georgian capital.
According to him, attempts to ‘buy’ votes and attempts to vote twice were recorded during the election process in Georgia.
Despite the registered violations, according to the observers, the election process and the voting day were ‘generally well organised’ and the elections themselves were ‘peaceful’. They also noted the active participation of voters and the presence of public and party observers at polling stations.