Georgian Parliament official claims OSCE/ODIHR faces strong political pressure

Irakli Kadagishvili, the Chair of the Regional Policy and Self-Government Committee of the Georgian Parliament, on Monday claimed the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) came under “significant political pressure and bullying” as the organisation had rejected the Georgian Government’s invitation to monitor the upcoming local elections scheduled for October, citing lack of time.

In his remarks, Kadagishvili noted that this, along with the fact that elections in Georgia are conducted objectively, led the organisation to decide against sending a monitoring mission.

“They generally know that elections here are held objectively. Therefore, they cannot come up with any kind of sensation, and taking all these circumstances into account, they did not consider it necessary to send observers”, the Parliament official noted.

The Georgian Government sent an official invitation to the OSCE/ODIHR on September 6 to observe the October 4 local elections. The Czech Government had issued a similar invitation earlier, on September 2, ahead of its own elections scheduled for October 3. On September 9, the OSCE/ODIHR announced that due to limited time, it would not deploy an observation mission to Georgia.

It is noteworthy that in 2007, following Mikheil Saakashvili’s resignation, the OSCE/ODIHR mission arrived in Georgia within a month of being invited to observe the 2008 presidential elections.