Documents

The second round of elections cemented the victory of the Georgian Dream (GD). Despite the opposition boycotting the elections, violations persisted. The first session of the Parliament convened in absence of the opposition and parties saw some annulling of their mandates. The DG pledge for an early election if there was one percent deviation in its favour, did not go forward. The statistical analysis corroborated some of the observers’ findings, highlighting trends of discrepancies. The court practices also indicated political bias and undue consideration of complaints and appeals.

In our latest policy alert, we analyse how District Election Commissions failed to adequately respond to the substantive violations detected in the summary protocols aggravating public distrust over the electoral process. This, and other recorded violations sparked a public outcry calling for the resignation of the Chairman of the Central Election Commission and snap elections. Amidst these developments the Georgian authorities have unlawfully dispersed crowds using water cannons, amounting to an excessive use of force.

ISFED stated in their fourth monitoring report of the election campaign that intimidation, harassment, and interference with participants in the election remain to be the greatest challenge. Unauthorized individuals have participated in election campaigning and possible cases of use of administrative resources and vote-buying have been identified. During the formation of PECs ISFED observed that these were done mostly pro forma and opposition requests were ignored.

ISFED identified 8 cases of alleged vote buying; cases of dismissal based on possible political motive in 5 municipalities; 5 cases of intimidation/harassment based on possible political motive; 2 cases of possible use of administrative resources; 2 cases of withholding social assistance based on possible political discrimination; 1 case of intimidation of ISFED observer; 1 case of interference in political activities and in pre-election campaigning by the Church; and 1 case of creating obstacles for registration of a political party.

This report evaluates the political and media landscape in the country ahead of the 2020 Parliamentary elections. Although the adoption of constitutional amendments on the electoral system avoided further tension and protests, political polarization remains as a challenge. The media environment, as well as political environment, is very polarized and continues to face challenges related to media freedom and pluralism. It is likely that these factors will also influence pre-election campaigning.

COVID-19 and the subsequent state of emergency has halted the process of constitutional amendments to introduce a new mixed electoral system ahead of the 2020 Parliamentary election in Georgia. However, now that the state of emergency has been lifted and some of the opposition leaders have been released, which was an important condition of the opposition to support any constitutional amendments to change the electoral system, amendments should move forward.

In Anton Shekhovtsov’s newest study, he analyzes how the presence of “foreign observers” during the “parliamentary elections” in the so-called “Republic of South Ossetia” and of the “presidential elections” in the so-called “Republic of Abkhazia” in 2019 was underpinned not by the actual need to observe the “elections”, but rather by the intent to mimic legitimate international election monitoring in order to create an impression that South Ossetia and Abkhazia were legitimate independent states.