The United States Embassy and the EU delegation to Georgia issued strongly worded statements giving critical assessment to yesterday’s local election runoffs amid opposition claims that voting result in several key cities were swapped through manipulation such as annulment of opposition ballots.
The EU delegation, whose statement was issued “in consultation with embassies of the member states” in particular stressed prior recommendations especially in the context of “malpractices” such as intimidation, pressure on voters and the misuse of administrative recourses were not only not taken into account, but the runoffs represented “missed opportunity.”
“Following the first round, we stated that the reported malpractices must not become a norm in Georgia. We deplore that these elections have been a missed opportunity in this respect. Despite a clear assessment by the international observers, meaningful steps were not taken to address key shortcomings. On the contrary, further shortcomings have emerged, especially in terms of misuse of administrative resources and violent rhetoric by Georgia’s political leaders, further fueling an already deep political polarization. Suggestions made before these elections that the central government would not cooperate with local councils, should they swing towards another majority, are of concern as they seek to restrict the electorate’s choice and to limit pluralism,” the statement said.
Repeating these concerns the US Embassy went a step further stating that the “wide-spread violations in the pre-election period and on both election days that adversely affected the ability of citizens to vote freely.”
“Rather than improving the atmosphere by addressing problems identified by election observers in the first round, intimidation, offensive rhetoric, misuse of administrative resources, and reports of blatant vote-buying and other violations continued, and a politicized media further inflamed the polarized atmosphere” the statement said.
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