“This Affects You Too” Welcomes Georgian President’s Call for International Election Observers

 Civil society organizations involved in the “This Affects You Too”-campaign asked the Government of Georgia on March 9 to invite the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) to monitor the fall parliamentary elections with a long-term observation mission.

We, the activists behind “This Affects You Too”, welcome recent statements by government officials on the importance of having international election observers.  In this regard, the statement made by the President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, at NATO Headquarters on April 3 is especially important: “We call strongly on international community, on European Union, the European Parliament, the OSCE, our partner countries, including members of the Alliance, to send not only short-term, but long-term observers, to do polling of public opinion for all this period, to monitor Georgian media coverage, to monitor party financing mechanism in order to ensure that not just the day of elections but the whole process is transparent”, Saakashvili said.

We welcome this initiative and hope that the government of Georgia will soon send the official invitation to international organizations and countries that have shown support to Georgia in the past, ensuring that international observers will be able to start monitoring the political, electoral and media environment in the near future.