OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Visits Georgia

President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Bruce George will arrive in Tbilisi today to lead the OSCE observers for the second round of the parliamentary elections in Georgia, which will take place on November 23.

As the news release issued by the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly reads, Bruce George will act as the Special Coordinator of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Dutch Foreign Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, leading the Mission and delivering the preliminary post election statement on November 24.

Second round elections will be conducted in districts where no candidates were elected in the first round. Bruce George also acted as Special Coordinator of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office for the observation of the first round of the elections.

On 3 November the International Election Observation Mission, comprised of the Parliamentary Assemblies of the OSCE and the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), concluded that the 2 November parliamentary elections in Georgia fell short of a number of OSCE commitments and other international standards for democratic elections.