EU to Deploy Mission to Georgia to Probe Electoral Fraud

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The EU's top diplomat has announced that the European Union plans to send a "technical mission" to Georgia to investigate reports of electoral fraud and irregularities, The Caspian Post reports citing foreign media.

EU Foreign Affairs High Representative Josep Borrell announced the planned mission on Monday, following a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council.

‘We will discuss the irregularities, and the elections will have to be investigated. The government has to produce decisive changes through concrete actions’, he said.

Borrell said that the mission’s aim was to ‘analyse the situation on the ground’.

‘They are contested by President [Salome Zourabichvili] herself. The outcome of the election raised a great concern in Europe because of the backsliding. The situation on the ground needs to be checked, analysed and that’s what technical missions are all about’, he said.

He did not specify when the mission would arrive in Georgia, but said that the EU would invite the head of the OSCE/ODIHR monitoring mission to talk about the violations found in the elections.

Borrell further stated that the ruling Georgian Dream party ‘moved the country away from the European path going against the aspirations of the Georgian people and to the country’s goal to be on the way to the European Union’.

‘We all want the same thing for Georgia: to get it back to the European path. This will require effort’, he said.

The official results of 26 October’s elections gave the ruling Georgian Dream party a large majority, with 54% of the vote. However, local media and observer groups have documented widespread vote rigging by the ruling party.

Borrell’s statements and plans to send a mission to investigate the elections were met with mixed reactions from Georgian Dream. 

Kakha Kaladze, the mayor of Tbilisi and the general secretary of the Georgian Dream, said that the government was ready to cooperate with the international mission.

‘Of course, we are ready. There is no problem’, he said.

However, the party’s executive secretary, Mamuka Mdinaradze, dismissed Borrell’s announcement.

‘What technical mission? Have you heard of anything like that anywhere?, he said. ‘In Georgia, Georgian law enforcement bodies are conducting the investigation, and quasi-unprecedented bodies cannot acquire investigative functions’.

On Monday, Borell said that around €100 million ($106 million) in EU funding earmarked for Georgia should be redirected to Georgian civil society groups.

Last month the European Union delegation in Georgia stated that the country will lose €121 million ($130 million) in EU funding ‘as a result of democratic backsliding’.