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Where are long term observing missions?

In his interview with the Kviris Palitra newspaper political analyst Kakha Kakhishvili spoke on the reasons why there are no long-term election observation missions in the country with only a month and a half until the parliamentary elections.

“In 2011 the entire international community claimed that they would observe the Georgian parliamentary elections with a magnifying glass and that Georgia's future would be dependent on how fair and democratic the elections were. However, currently we can see no observing missions inside the country,” Kakhishvili states.

The analyst suggests two reasons. The first is that the government has delayed inviting election observation missions to Georgia. The second is that possibly international election observation missions do not wish to carry out long-term pre-election monitoring in Georgia.

“If we talk about long-term missions it means that the commission which comes to the country in questions studies legislation, observes the election process, the usage of administrative resources and makes a report. The short-term mission observes just the election day and records those shortcomings which occurred on that date,” Kakhishvili stated.

Kakhishvili stressed that the long-term missions undertake a preventive role as well and their being in the country makes the ruling power to act within the legal norms.

“I also think that when the government moved the election date from May to October it thought about this issue. The authorities timed the pre-election period to summer and summer is summer everywhere… it seems election observers are on vacation and carrying out pre-election observation during the hot summer days would also be difficult for any mission,” Kakhishvili said.



Political race in Bakhmaro

Representatives of opposition political coalition Georgian Dream claim that they were barred from entering Bakmaro during a horse race on the Feast of the Transfiguration (August 19th), newspaper Rezonansi reads.

The event was attended by the President and government representatives as well. According to Georgian Dream Coalition Chokhatauri parliamentary candidate Temur Chkuaseli, special security forces and "men in black" stood at the entrance of Chokhatauri with a list and allowed only allowed those on the list to enter. “Unfortunately we were on the black list,” Chkuaseli stated.

The information was denied by the United National Movement Press Secretary, Giorgi Pataraia. According to him there were no black lists and the events in Bakhmaro occurred without incident.