Politicians Comment on OSCE Post-Election Report

Opposition politicians have broadly welcomed the OSCE/ODIHR post-election interim report, which covers the period between January 6 and January 18. Officials, however, maintained the report only highlighted “technical shortcoming,” which they said would be resolved before the parliamentary elections.

“I think that the final conclusion will be even more critical,” Davit Gamkrelidze, leader of the opposition New Rights party, told Rustavi 2 television on January 19. “The most important thing is that nobody could assess this election as democratic, free or fair. The assessment is really very severe, but they could not politically say that the election was invalid. Of course, the OSCE could not take it upon itself [to do this].”

“The assessments are extremely negative,” Davit Usupashvili, leader of the opposition Republican Party, said. “The report notes all those violations put forth by the opposition.”

The opposition Labor Party said that the OSCE/ODIHR election observation mission, in its report, was effectively warning the authorities not to repeat “falsifications” in the parliamentary elections in May.

Nino Nakashidze, a lawmaker from the ruling party, however, said that the OSCE/ODIHR’s criticism had come as no surprise to the authorities. “We think that it will help us improve the election process in future,” she told Rustavi 2 television.

Davit Bakradze, the state minister for conflict resolution issues and Saakashvili campaign spokesperson, stressed that the January 18 report had made no political assessment. 

“It naturally reiterates the first assessment, according to which the election was held in compliance with international standards and it outlines those technical mistakes, which were reflected in the previous report and which were revealed as a result of analyzing the results of the election. We are working on these technical mistakes and we plan to rectify them for the next parliamentary elections,” Bakradze said.