Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze called on the Anti-Corruption Bureau to reverse its decision to declare Transparency International Georgia as an organization with “declared election objectives,” a day after the watchdog announced it couldn’t observe October elections under its name. The Prime Minister said such legal status for CSOs will only serve as an incentive for “external manipulation.”
Before PM Kobakhidze’s announcement, PACE observers and the head of the observer mission expressed “deep concern” that local watchdog Transparency International Georgia has been forced to end its election monitoring after the Anti-Corruption Bureau declared the organization and its Executive Director, Eka Gigauri, as entities with declared election objectives. In a statement, PACE monitors urged the authorities to safeguard the legitimacy of the elections and ensure that CSOs can observe these elections without hindrance.
On October 1, the Honorary Chair and founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party, Bidzina Ivanishvili, published his letter commemorating the 12th anniversary of GD’s coming to power in Georgia in 2012. In his letter, he called the day “the day of the return of freedom,” “the unity of the Georgian people,” “the most important victory in the history of independent Georgia,” and “the day when a Georgian man restored his honor.”
In another lengthy letter, published later in the day and in response to the Facebook card shared by the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, the Georgian Dream leader, Bidzina Ivanishvili, denied he intended to target either the U.S. or the EU when talking about the “global war party” during his party’s campaign. He made references to U.S. conspiracy theories such as “deep state” and warned the U.S. of the potential “reputational damage” if they keep supporting the opposition.
In a congratulatory message on the 12th anniversary of GD’s coming to power, Tbilisi Mayor and GD General Secretary Kakha Kaladze underscored Bidzina Ivanishvili’s role in uniting people and defeating externally-backed Saakashvili’s bloody regime. “The status of the beacon of democracy was, so to speak, shoved down the throat of the population of our country by external actors, but what was really behind it, how much evil, how much hatred, and what a bloody regime, the public knows very well,” Kaladze said.