Watchdog Groups Say Election Timeframe Tight

It was not only political parties that were caught by surprise with the Georgian authorities’ decision to set an earlier local election date than initially promised. Election watchdog organizations also seem to be surprised by the move.

Both local and international election observer groups are now saying that the given timeframe is too tight.

The Warsaw-based OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) will send a team of experts within the next week to assess the need for observation. A decision on sending an observation mission to Georgia will be made late next week.

“I can’t speculate on how many observers we might send. The timeframe is indeed very tight, not only for us, but for the election administration, political parties, and others. We will know more next week as to whether this tight timeframe impacts a possible observation,” Urdur Gunnarsdottir, ODIHR Spokesperson, told Civil Georgia on August 31.

In a statement issued on August 27, President Saakashvili said the Georgian authorities want to invite a large number of international observers, “and call on Georgian society for activeness in order to provide maximum transparency and democracy with the elections.”

Tamar Zhvania, who chairs a local election watchdog group International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), says that although the organization started preparing for the polls long ago, it was still a surprise that October 5 was set as the elections date following earlier statements about intentions to to set the date for either November or December.

“Currently we are training about 3 000 observers who will be sent throughout Georgia to monitor the polls. In addition, we also plan to carry out parallel vote tabulation in Tbilisi and in four other major cities, including Kutaisi, Rustavi, Batumi and Poti,” Tamar Zhvania told Civil Georgia on August 30.

She said that the deadline for registering observers in the Central Election Commission (CEC) expires on September 15. “It is not an easy task to submit to the CEC data for 3 000 observers in two weeks,” Zhvania said.

Another local group New Generation-New Initiative (nGnI) plans to recruit about 2 500 observers to monitor elections throughout Georgia.

“We are totally occupied with the elections, as apart from observation we also plan parallel vote tabulation in Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Telavi, Gori, Poti and Batumi,” Koki Ionatamishvili of nGnI told Civil Georgia on August 30.

Observers are also concerned that the CEC might not have enough time to complete the process of rechecking voter lists, which was launched on August 23. Special groups were set up to visit families door-to-door in order to check lists of registered voters in Georgia.

Even some of the officials from the ruling National Movement, including MP Pavle Kublashvili, admitted in June when the Parliament made a decision to form special groups that initial lists included “a great deal of inaccuracies.”

Initially, a total of 3 000 special groups with nine members in each were authorized to recheck voter lists throughout Georgia within 20 days – before September 12. But after announcing the October 5 election date, the groups now will be disbanded earlier – on September 1.

CEC Chairman Guram Chalagashvili says that this will not create a problem in the further rechecking of voter lists, as the precinct election commissions will be in charge of the process starting from September 1.

“I am really surprised with this statement of the CEC Chairman, who says that the election administration is ready for polls. A huge job is ahead in order to improve voter lists. Special groups are a much more effective tool in the process of rechecking,” Tamar Zhvania of ISFED said.