Tomorrow, the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) will debate the political situation in Georgia. According to the Assembly’s website, monitoring co-rapporteurs Edite Estrela of Portugal (Socialists, Democrats, and Greens) and Sabina Cudic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) will present a draft resolution titled “Support for Democracy and the Rule of Law in Georgia.”
The resolution expresses deep concern that Georgian authorities have systematically ignored PACE’s warnings and recommendations, which echo those of the broader international community. It states that the “rapid rollback of democracy has progressed so far that the existence of democracy in Georgia is now in question,” and condemns the government’s “increasingly isolationist policies, antagonism toward European institutions, and baseless attacks on the international community.”
The text also criticizes the conditions surrounding Georgia’s upcoming local elections. It notes that most opposition parties plan to boycott the vote, and raises alarm over the absence of respected election observers. The resolution regrets that the authorities failed to invite the Council of Europe’s Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, and deliberately sent an invitation to the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) so late that observation became impossible.
