Burjanadze Meets Election Watchdogs
Georgian Parliamentary Chairperson Nino Burjanadze held talks with local election observer organizations on February 8 to discuss the upcoming parliamentary elections.
The meeting came a few days after four election watchdog groups – the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA); New Generation-New Initiative (nGnI); Transparency International–Georgia and International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) laid out ten pre-conditions they consider necessary for free and fair elections this spring.
Koki Ionatamishvili and Giorgi Chkheidze, head of nGnI and GYLA, respectively, said after the meeting that among other things, how to improve the courts’ and election administrations’ response to complaints made by observers was discussed. Election watchdog groups complained after the January 5 presidential election that most of their complaints had been unfairly and arbitrarily dismissed by the election administrations on procedural grounds.
Burjanadze told journalists after the meeting that a special working group to work on the improvement of the election code would be set up. “I am actively working to deal with all shortcomings,” she said.
She said the authorities were willing to address all the shortcomings outlined in the reports by the OSCE/ODIHR observation mission during the January 5 presidential election. Burjanadze also called on the international community to send as many observers as possible to monitor the parliamentary elections this spring. “There should be international observers at each precinct,” Burjanadze said.
