13.09.2001 - Source: Council of Europe - Parliamentary Assembly

Council of Europe: The April 2000 presidential elections did not show any improvement ("Honouring of obligations and commitments by Georgia [Doc. 9191]") [#10653],  [ID 4776]

"15. Regrettably, the presidential elections of April 2000 did not show any improvement – rather the contrary, according to the ad hoc committee of the Assembly which observed these elections (see Doc. 8742).

16. Amendments to the electoral legislation were adopted only three weeks before the presidential elections, thus creating confusion in terms of interpretation and implementation of the legislation. The ad hoc committee also noted that, in certain instances, amendments paid “only lip service to previous recommendations by international observers, retaining essentially the old flawed framework.”"

Document(s): Open document

13.09.2001 - Source: Council of Europe - Parliamentary Assembly

Council of Europe: Violations on the election day ("Honouring of obligations and commitments by Georgia [Doc. 9191]") [#10653],  [ID 4777]

"19. But what is more worrying is that serious violations took place on election day: the ad hoc committee reported repeated incidents of ballot box stuffing, heavy police presence and other forms of pressure at the polling stations, as well as the lack of opposition members at the different electoral committees or their lack of influence on electoral committee decisions, as a result of which the domestic monitors – International Society for Fair Elections – considered ironically that the electoral process resulted in a “Gamgebelis[2] elected President”. Thus the ad hoc committee stated that although the outcome of the elections could not be contested, the official figures of the turnout could hardly be accepted.

20. As the ad hoc committee on the presidential elections noted, lack of time could be the reason why only about one third of the recommendations made by international observers in the wake of the parliamentary elections were implemented at the presidential elections. It might also have been impossible for the central authorities to check up on local officials responsible for the conduct of the elections."

Document(s): Open document

13.09.2001 - Source: Council of Europe - Parliamentary Assembly

Council of Europe: October 1999 parliamentary elections "marked a significant and welcome improvement over previous elections" but was "far from perfect" ("Honouring of obligations and commitments by Georgia [Doc. 9191]") [#10653],  [ID 4778]

"11. During its first year of membership of the Council of Europe, Georgia went through both parliamentary and presidential elections. The former were held on 31 October 1999, the latter on 9 April 2000. They were both observed by ad hoc committees of the Bureau of the Assembly.

12. The ad hoc committee which observed the parliamentary elections concluded (see Doc. 8605) that “the vote marked a significant and welcome improvement over previous elections” but also noted that the Electoral Law was “far from perfect” leaving “a lot of room for interpretation by the Central Electoral Committee” and urged the new parliament to rectify this situation. The committee also expected complaints about the conduct of the pre-election campaign, the composition of election committees and allocation of time and space in the media “to be investigated in time for the Presidential election”. [...]"

Document(s): Open document