We believe that burdening the OSCE/ODIHR with our local elections would be unnecessary, Irakli Kobakhidze told journalists, responding to the British Embassy’s statement calling on the government to invite an OSCE/ODIHR mission to observe local elections.

As Kobakhidze noted, certain countries make exceptions, but according to standard practice, the OSCE/ODIHR mission is only invited for parliamentary elections.

“As for cooperation between Georgia and Great Britain, of course, we are absolutely open to it, although it is very important that cooperation be based on specific principles. In this regard, we should remember that there were certain vicious practices, including the financing of extremism in our country. Of course, such facts prevent the development of healthy partnership relations. Recently, there have been attempts to finance several organizations. These are organizations directly related to the radical opposition - Tabula, the Future Academy, which is a continuation of the Franklin Club.

As for the OSCE/ODIHR, you know that in general there is no such practice of inviting the OSCE/ODIHR to local elections. Deviations occur, including, we also had such a deviation in 2021, since these elections were related to the topic of parliamentary elections. There are exceptional cases in different countries when OSCE/ODIHR is invited to local elections, but this is only an exception. According to standard practice, an OSCE/ODIHR mission is invited to parliamentary elections. Accordingly, we believe that in this case, it will be unnecessary for OSCE/ODIHR to be burdened with our local elections. Local elections will be held in a healthy manner.

You know that OSCE/ODIHR observed the parliamentary elections and made an appropriate conclusion, but no one was interested in this conclusion. Today, the same people who completely ignored the OSCE/ODIHR conclusion are asking us to invite the OSCE/ODIHR,” said Irakli Kobakhidze.

For information, the British Embassy in Georgia calls on the Georgian government to invite the OSCE/ODIHR mission to observe the local elections and also to take into account all the recommendations issued in the OSCE/ODIHR final report regarding the 2024 parliamentary elections. This is stated in the statement of the British Embassy.

In addition, as noted in the statement, Georgian legislation provides for monitoring by observation organizations, which is an important part of professional and transparent election supervision.

The British Embassy in Georgia encourages the Georgian Government to extend an invitation to ODIHR/OSCE to observe October’s municipal elections and take forward all recommendations in ODIHR’s final report on the 2024 parliamentary election, - reads a statement issued by the British Embassy today.

In addition, as noted in the statement, Georgian legislation makes provision for citizen monitoring, which is an important part of professional and transparent scrutiny of elections.