OSCE’s democracy and rights arm ODIHR opened on September 25 election observation mission for Georgia’s October 31 parliamentary polls.
Currently the mission includes a core team of 13 experts based in Tbilisi, which will be joined by 27 long-term observers from October 1, who will be deployed across the country to monitor the electoral process throughout Georgia.
Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) also plans to request the OSCE participating states to send 350 short-term observers to follow election day proceedings.
The mission is led by Ambassador Jillian Stirk, who also headed OSCE/ODIHR Election Assessment Mission to the Slovak Republic in 2020. Until June 2013, Jillian Stirk was the Chief Foreign Policy Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister of Strategic Policy, Global Issues, and European affairs at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade of Canada.
OSCE/ODIHR’s long-term observation mission, which was launched five weeks before the parliamentary elections, will prepare one interim report on the course of the observation.
OSCE/ODIHR’s long-term observation mission ahead of the 2016 parliamentary elections, which was launched slightly over five weeks before the election day, released back then also one interim report.
The mission will assess whether the elections are held in line with OSCE commitments and other international obligations and standards for democratic elections, as well as with national legislation. Observers will closely monitor fundamental aspects of the elections such as voter registration, campaign activities, the work of the election administration and relevant government bodies, election-related legislation and its implementation, and the resolution of election-related disputes. The mission will also monitor media coverage of the campaign.
A statement of preliminary findings and conclusions will be issued on the day after the election and a final report on the observation of the entire election process will be published approximately two months after the end of the election process.
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