Watchdogs Outline Ten Terms for Fair Elections

Four election watchdog groups laid out on February 5 ten pre-conditions they consider necessary for free and fair elections. 

The Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA); New Generation-New Initiative (nGnI); Transparency International–Georgia and International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) listed the following conditions:

1. Improvement of election legislation in order not to leave room for double-interpretations and to provide firm guarantees that state resources will not be used; final amendments should be adopted at least two months before polling day;
   
2. Election administrations at all levels should be reformed to secure impartial and professional work, that would in turn increase the level of public confidence towards the election commissions;
   
3. Improvement of voter list;
   
4. The exact date of the election should be announced timely to allow all election stakeholders, including observers, to prepare for the elections;
   
5. The use of administrative resources to support the campaign of any party should be eliminated and clear cut provisions in the law should ban public officials from campaigning in favor of a party; intimidation of voters, election commission members and other election stakeholders should be totally eliminated and free and equal access to media should be guaranteed;
   
6. Transparency of election campaign funds should be increased, as well as the authority of the campaign funds oversight group at the Central Election Commission;
   
7. Registration procedures for local observers should be simplified and they should enjoy the same rights as international observers;
   
8. Voting, ballot counting, and election result summarization procedures should be simplified and any legislative or procedural ambiguities eliminated;
   
9. Ambiguous provisions in laws in respect to the consideration of election complaints by courts and election administrations should be clarified; election administrations and courts should comprehensively and impartially consider election complaints;
   
10. Voters should be timely informed about voter list, pre-election and polling day procedures.

The four election observer organizations have also called for the continuation of the inter-agency governmental group set up before the January 5 presidential election. The group, observer organizations said, should “actively involve in its activities political parties, civil society, and the media.”