The Council of Europe and the City of Strasbourg hosted a delegation of the Central Electoral Commission of Georgia on April 22, 23 and 24 April in the first round of the presidential election in France.
The purpose of the visit was to become familiar with the rules and procedures of voting in France within the framework of the Council of Europe's electoral assistance activities in Georgia.
The Georgian delegation led by Giorgi Sharabidze, Deputy Chairperson of the CEC, met with the representatives of different Council of Europe bodies, French electoral administration, experts and observed the administration and management of the first round of Presidential Elections in France.
Mr Eric Schultz, Deputy Mayor of Strasbourg in charge of elections, Mr Dominique Ritleng, Professor of Public Law at the University of Strasbourg, and Mr Dominique Jung, Editor-in-Chief of the Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace, presented the legal framework, the organisation of the vote and the conduct of the electoral campaign in the media.
On election day, the members of the Central Electoral Commission of Georgia were able to attend the voting operations in a polling station in Strasbourg. They were also able to attend the counting and the centralisation of the results in the city of Strasbourg.
On 24 April, the Georgian delegation traveled to Paris for an analysis of the 2017 presidential election presented by Bertrand Simon, Professor at the University Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne. Following this conference, the members of the Central Electoral Commission of Georgia were received at the Quai d'Orsay for a meeting with the representatives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The study visit was organised in the framework of the Council of Europe “Programme to support Georgia in view of the 2016 (parliamentary), 2017 (local) and 2018 (presidential) elections” funded by the Kingdom of Norway.
