CoE: Georgian municipal elections ‘missed opportunity’ for local democracy

The Council of Europe (CoE) observation mission says that the October 2 municipal elections in Georgia were a ‘missed opportunity’ for local democracy. 

 

CoE’s mission, composed of 18 members from 15 CoE states, were observing the elections between September 29 and October 3. 

 

David Eray, the head of the delegation, underlined the ‘extremely polarised political environment’ in the country as well as an increase in verbal aggression, hate speech and fake news on social media during the campaign.

 

“This polarisation had a paralyzing effect on local democracy which, in fact, has been taken hostage of the overall national political situation. Against this background, this poll was a missed opportunity for local democracy in Georgia”, Eray stated. 

 

He said that the Election Day was overall calm, orderly, transparent and well organised.

 

“Except for some inconsistencies, particularly regarding the set-up of polling booths and finger-inking, our observers did not notice major shortcomings during the voting procedures. Some polling stations in urban areas, mostly in Tbilisi, were comparatively small considering the large number of commission members and domestic observers and thus over-crowded,” he said. 

 

Eray stated although new regulations were put in place to increase number of women on candidate lists by placing at least one in every three candidates of the opposite gender on the ballot, this legal provision ‘proved insufficient as women were almost always placed as the third, sixth or ninth candidate, thus having much lower chances to get elected than their male counterparts.’