Georgian NGOs initiate working group on electoral matters

Georgian NGOs offer the authorities to urgently set up a working group on electoral issues, citing the need to improve the Georgia's electoral legislation and bring it to full compliance with international standards.

For the last time the electoral law of Georgia were amended this March. Most of the enacted amendments to the Electoral Code concerned the elections to local self-government in summer of 2014. Oppositional parties then stated that "the authorities refused from electoral reforms."

Now, six NGOs, which have signed the statement, note that in recent years "the need became obvious to make changes in a number of fundamental issues that will improve the electoral environment, among them – the electoral system, rules of forming electoral administrations, and financing political parties."

The authors of the document believe that the process of amending the electoral legislation should be as constructive as possible and offer the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES) to conduct an independent examination.

The NGOs officially sent their proposal to the Parliament on September 23; and the MPs must respond no later than ten days after the receipt of the document, Ketevan Chachava, the head of the NGO "Centre for Democracy and Development", told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.