U.S. Notes ‘Improvements’ in Georgian Elections

U.S. Department of State deputy spokesman, Tom Casey, said Washington thought the May 21 parliamentary elections were “improvement over the January presidential vote.”

“We’ve seen some comments by the observers, including those from the OSCE, that indicate that the elections, while having some procedural issues with them, did proceed in a positive manner,” he said at a news briefing on May 22. “We’ll certainly look forward to seeing the results and look forward to working with the new government once formed.”

OSCE/ODIHR-led international observation mission said that “despite efforts to conduct elections in line with standards, a number of problems were identified which made their implementation uneven and incomplete.”