Founder of Democracy Research Institute warns of election environment “worsened by Russian Law’, ‘legislative restrictions”

The founder of the Democracy Research Institute, Ucha Nanuashvili, on Wednesday raised concerns about the election environment in Georgia, citing several factors that he claimed had negatively impacted the process.

Among them, the adoption of what he referred to as the “Russian law” – in reference to the foreign influence transparency law initiated and adopted by the ruling Georgian Dream party this year – and other legislative initiatives “had placed unprecedented restrictions on civil society and media operations, directly affecting the country’s election dynamics”.

Nanuashvili also highlighted “widespread incidents of violence and pressure” in the run-up to the Saturdays general elections. “Everything that happened has an impact on the election environment,” he said, adding “in addition, of course, the use of administrative resources is quite unprecedented in its scale, and we have presented concrete figures for this. There are also many cases of violence and pressure”.