2013 Presidential Elections

 The International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) is publishing the Final Monitoring Report on the Presidential Elections of October 27, 2013.

Being an observer organization with the largest network, the ISFED has been actively involved in the process of monitoring the pre-election period, the Election Day and the post-election period as well during the presidential elections of 2013. 

According to the evaluation of the ISFED, activities of the Central Election Commission was open and supported the establishment of collaborative environment among the local and international organizations, and political parties as well. The ISFED criticized the CEC’s decision about refusing the people with double citizenship in registration as a presidential candidate and stated that this decision was made based on wrong interpretation of the Constitution.

“From the viewpoint of refining the legislation before the elections, creation of the parliamentary inter-faction group for the election issues was a positive development, where all the interested parties were able to submit legislative recommendations and to participate in the discussions. Whole range of positive amendments was made to the election legislation as the result of the work performed by the commission. However, the group did not discuss the fundamental issues such as the changes within the electoral system for the local government and parliamentary elections, formation of the voter lists, regulation on staffing the electoral administration, etc.” – said Nino Lomjaria, director of the organization.

Nino Janashia, ISFED’s lawyer is saying that “for ensuring the fair and free elections, the format of Inter-Agency Task Force performed an important function from the viewpoint of responding to and preventing the violations during the run-up to the elections. It was problematic to discuss the issues raised by the United National Movement in a constructive mode, as far as the IATF sessions would often turn into a place of political debates.”

According to the organization’s evaluation, compared to the parliamentary elections of 2012, the State Audit Office was distinguished with being less active during the parliamentary elections of 2013. The Political Parties Financial Monitoring Service has not studied any of the facts of vote buying revealed by the ISFED. 

The Election Day was conducted in an organized and quiet setting throughout the whole country. Majority of violations observed on the polling day was of procedural nature. “Review of complaints during the Election Day was carried out in a transparent way, in adherence to the electoral legislation. The District Election Commissions studied the factual circumstances of cases; representatives of the organization had a chance to attend the hearing of complaints and to state the organization’s position regarding the lodged complaints. In most cases the decisions of the election commission were reasoned; however, in some cases the decisions on rejecting the claim did not indicate why the complaint was considered ungrounded.” – says Elene Nizharadze, ISFED’s lawyer.

Together with the evaluation of elections, the ISFED also presents recommendations for the future in the Final Report.

You can find more information about the organization’s opinions and recommendations in the ISFED’s report.