“We are deeply concerned by the fact that Transparency International Georgia has been forced to close its election observation operations because of the deplorable decision by the Anti-Corruption Bureau to declare this civil society organisation and its Director as ‘subjects with a declared electoral aim’,” said the PACE co-rapporteurs for the monitoring of Georgia, Claude Kern (France, ALDE) and Edite Estrela (Portugal, SOC) as well as the head of the Assembly delegation observing Georgia’s forthcoming election, Iulian Bulai (Romania, ALDE).

“This seems to confirm the concerns expressed by the Assembly in a recent resolution that ‘respected civil society organisations, with a long-standing and extensive experience in election observation, might no longer be able to observe the elections’. This is unacceptable and undermines public trust in the democratic nature of the electoral process,” they said.

“We therefore urge the relevant authorities to safeguard the legitimacy of these elections and to take all necessary measures to ensure that Transparency International Georgia, as well as other respected election observation CSOs, can observe these elections without hindrance or interference in their work.”