PACE calls for all Georgian political parties to resolve the ongoing crisis and enter Parliament

At the winter preliminary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on January 25, the special rapporteur of Tiny Cox presented the draft report on the October 2020 Parliamentary Elections.

According to the report findings, the elections were overall free and carried out “in respect of the basic freedoms”, and the competition was both fair and free. Nevertheless, it has been said that the issues like campaign funding would need to be resolved in the future, in order to ensure the democratic conduct of the upcoming elections.

However, several of the speakers at the session did not share a positive assessment of the October elections. For example, Jette Christensen, who visited Georgia as part of the international observation mission claimed that the country lacked a common information space, which, in turn, would be a crucial factor in restoring people’s trust in the Democracy and democratic processes.

Similarly, Laima Andrikiene stated during the PACE session that she strongly disagrees with the positive assessment of the Parliamentary elections and expressed solidarity with the Georgian NGOs that named them “the worst elections in the modern history of Georgia”.

The annual report released by PACE reads that it is ‘regrettable’ that the opposition parties refuse to enter the Parliament, as doing so would be “in the best interest of the country”, and the failure to do so would undermine the country’s democratic processes.

The PACE report goes on to recommend “Georgia to fully and transparently investigate all allegations of electoral misconduct during the October 2020 parliamentary elections; the Assembly urges all political parties to take up the seats they won in the new parliament and not to undermine its democratic functioning”.

“Regrettably, the opposition parties, alleging widespread fraud, announced that they would boycott the second round and the new parliament. This is especially regrettable given that the results for opposition parties in these elections would give them a strong position to execute parliamentary oversight. Parliament is the place for the conduct of politics and debate and the Assembly has therefore consistently opposed parliamentary boycotts. In the best interest of the country all political parties are therefore urged to take up their parliamentary mandates,” the report added in the country-specific section.

Head of the Georgian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, MP Kakhaber Kuchava, responded to the criticism of the October 2020 Parliamentary Elections. Kuchava said the 21st century is the era of misinformation, and we often fall victim to it. He added that the NGOs, which refused to accept the election results have already admitted to being mistaken about the election conduct.