Debate Heats Up in Georgia Over Fairness of Upcoming Elections and Electronic Voting

By Malkhaz Matsaberidze

Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Kelly Degnan, the now former US ambassador to Georgia, spoke about the upcoming parliamentary elections in Georgia in an interview given to Radio "Freedom" and emphasized the need to conduct them fairly. This started a heated discussion between the ruling "Georgian Dream" and the opposition political spectrum. This started a heated discussion between the ruling "Georgian Dream" and the opposition political spectrum.

According to Degnan, no one said that the parliamentary elections of 2020, as well as the municipal elections of 2021, were fair. In order to make the 2024 elections "better" and to reduce possible flaws in the electoral process, Degnan singled out several points: Election monitoring is a long-term mission because only monitoring on the day of the election does not provide much and the rigging of the elections starts months before. For many years, there have been "long-term" tactics used by various authorities in Georgia, which are supposed to ensure Intimidation of people, bribery of votes, and threats to people that if they don't vote the way they should, they will lose their jobs. Therefore, early monitoring of the election process will reveal such violations and help Georgian voters to later have confidence in the result.

During the 2020 parliamentary elections, the Covid pandemic precluded long-term monitoring of the election process, and we should expect such monitoring in 2024. The head of "Fair Elections" (ISFED) Nino Dolidze immediately responded to this statement of the former US ambassador, who said that in order to see the full picture of the pre-election environment and the course of the elections, it is desirable for international missions to observe the process for at least 6 months.

The Georgian Dream was particularly irritated by Kelly Degnan's statement that conducting the upcoming parliamentary elections with an electronic system (90% of precincts will switch to the electronic voting system in the upcoming elections in Georgia) is not a guarantee that the elections will be clean and fair.

It can also be manipulated if people do not know how to use this system. That's why it's important for voters and precinct officials to know how the system works.

The opposition's response to the risks of electronic voting was much more critical. According to Nika Gvaramia, the electronic voting system is accompanied by much more serious threats, and as the Georgian Dream intends to hold electronic elections, it serves to falsify the elections. According to Gvaramia, electronic voting should be used to allow every immigrant to vote for the desired party through a secure system.

According to the leader of the National Movement Levan Khabeishvili, there are various means of manipulation in electronic elections. For example, printing fake ID cards. The opposition's talk about the dangers of electronic elections was followed by retaliatory statements from the Georgian Dream side. According to their statements, both the opposition and the ambassadors of the partner countries have been demanding electronic elections for years, this request was also recorded in Charles Michel's document.

The opposition also supported the adoption of the relevant law in the parliament. The leaders of the Georgian Dream consider it impossible to falsify electronic elections and explain the "campaign to discredit the elections" by the opposition one year before the elections by saying that the opposition is "doomed to inevitable defeat" in the next elections. The Georgian Dream considered Degnan's appeal to the citizens of Georgia to actively participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections as interference in the country's internal affairs and a "push to revolution." "This is a push, an indication that the election process should take place in a revolutionary scenario," - This is how Georgian Dream parliamentarian Irakli Kadagishvili assessed Kelly Degnan's words. According to him, such a statement is usually made by a political party when voters are called to protect their votes.

The discussion held in the Georgian political spectrum on Kelly Degnan's statement regarding the elections showed that the ruling of the Georgian Dream not only excludes the possibility of any fraud in future elections but also considers the previous elections (both the 2020 parliamentary and 2021 municipal elections) to have been flawlessly conducted.

The opposition does not trust the elections conducted by the Georgian Dream and believes that the current ruling power, which has been in power since 2012 and is actively talking about its future victory, will use all possible means of falsification.

According to the opposition, Kelly Degnan's interview expresses the point of view of the West, which looks critically at the prospect of holding fair elections by the Georgian Dream, and if frauds are detected during the upcoming elections, the West will no longer turn a blind eye to it.

As for the opposition (the real opposition, which the ruling power declares as "radical opposition"), he talks about the inevitable change of the current government and considers it necessary to mobilize the voters as much as possible and control the election administration to prevent fraud. Such statements were made by the opposition during the previous elections as well, but its fight against the Georgian Dream was unsuccessful.