Parliament Speaker Papuashvili urges citizens to ‘respond’ to attempts to sabotage elections

Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Friday said there were attempts to sabotage Saturday’s local self-government elections and stressed the importance of citizens giving a “proper response” to such initiatives.

Speaking at a briefing, Papuashvili alleged that some political groups and their partners in civil society and the media were trying to deprive voters of their electoral rights and influence turnout through calls for boycotts and threats of parallel protests.

“Tomorrow, local self-government elections will be held. Georgian citizens will elect mayors of 64 municipalities and more than 2,000 members of municipal councils. Twenty-eight international and domestic observation organisations, 27 local monitoring groups, and 73 media outlets are accredited to observe and cover the elections. In total, more than 2,500 observers and journalists will have the opportunity to monitor the process,” Papuashvili said.

He noted that 12 political parties are participating in the elections, with nine mayoral candidates in Tbilisi. According to Papuashvili, the pre-election environment was largely calm, with all political forces having the opportunity to campaign.

However, he accused the opposition of being “passive” in the regions and instead focusing their efforts on media appearances. He also criticised what he described as coordinated actions aimed at “sabotaging the elections” through boycotts and plans for protests.

“It is important that tomorrow our citizens give an appropriate response to all these attempts,” Papuashvili said.