The OSCE changed its shoes in the air: "Elections in Georgia passed with massive violations"

Parliamentary elections in Georgia passed with massive violations that undermined public confidence and violated the country's international obligations, the OSCE/ODIHR said in its final report.

"The numerous problems noted in our final report negatively affected the integrity of these elections and undermined public confidence in this process," said Eoghan Murphy, who led the 2024 election observation mission in Georgia.

The head of the mission believes that "in order to protect the democratic principles that are currently at stake in Georgia, it is extremely important that the authorities urgently eliminate all the problems."

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said he was pleased with the final report of the OSCE/ODIHR on the parliamentary elections. In his understanding, the report confirmed that they were free and competitive.

Kobakhidze stressed that the OSCE/ODIHR speaks only about "individual incidents." There are criticisms, including on the secrecy of voting, but this is also happening in other countries, Kobakhidze stressed.

The Prime Minister expressed readiness to cooperate with the OSCE/ODIHR to implement the recommendations presented in the conclusion.

EADaily reported that the monitoring mission of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE/ODIHR) immediately after the elections on October 26 published the results of monitoring the elections to the Parliament of Georgia, in which it actually recognized the victory of the Georgian Dream. OSCE Mission Coordinator Pascal Alizar at a special briefing noted the good level of organization of the elections.

"The voting day as a whole was organized and administered well, and voters had a wide choice due to the diversity of political voices," Alizar said.

However, he listed a number of problems — the situation was tense, the secrecy of voting was often violated, there were procedural inconsistencies and violations. Alizar also said "about the facts of intimidation and pressure that negatively affected voters, and this negatively affected the process." He also noted the "imbalance in the financial resources" of the election participants and controversial legislative changes.