US Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Jim Risch have sent a letter to the US Secretary of State and the head of the Agency for International Development (USAID), in which they appeal to the administration to establish a long-term observation mission in Georgia for the 2024 elections. The Georgian editorial office of Voice of America disseminates information about this.
According to VOA, the Democratic Chairman of the European Affairs Subcommittee in the Senate, Jeanne Shaheen, and the ranking Republican in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jim Risch, call for the creation of a long-term election observation mission in Georgia, which will observe the upcoming elections in Georgia in 2024″ in order to “support Georgia and the Georgian people at this crucial moment for their democracy”.
Both senators were in Georgia as observers during the 2012 elections. According to them, after this visit, unfortunately, we witnessed the erosion of democratic institutions in Georgia and we see growing signs that Georgia’s progress towards democracy has stopped.
Preparation for the 2024 elections and conducting free and fair elections are considered by the senators to be a critically important stage for the country’s democratic development, not only for Georgia, but also for the national interests of America.
According to them, Georgia is at a crossroads, and the success of Georgia’s democracy is in our [US] national interest. They also note that bipartisan support in Congress for Georgia’s sovereignty and membership in the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization remains strong, but the government’s recent setbacks compel us to call on the administration to take action on the state of democracy and governance in Georgia.
The senators believe that the fact that the European Commission chose not to grant Georgia candidate status, when it considered that Ukraine and Moldova were ready for this status, is an indicator of the downward trend of democracy in Georgia.
In the letter, Shaheen and Risch mentioned the 12 priorities, among which are implementation of electoral, judicial and anti-corruption reforms. In their opinion, the foreign agents bill recently introduced in the Parliament of Georgia was an attempt to weaken civil society and independent media, which would further distance Georgia from its candidate status.
As they note, although the Parliament of Georgia made the right decision by rejecting the proposed legislation, they are concerned that the submission of this bill and the attempt to speed it up [by the Parliament] is a worrying sign of deviating from the declared Euro-Atlantic future.
As noted in the letter, due to Georgia’s “democratic backsliding” and the fact that conducting a legitimate election process requires many months of preparation, the senators call on the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to immediately create a long-term observation mission in Georgia. They also call on the administration to prioritize high-level visits to Georgia together with European allies.
The senators ask the administration to direct appropriate financial resources so that the 2024 elections in Georgia reflect the will of the Georgian people and fulfill their wishes. For this effort, Senators are calling for “close consultation” with the Agency for International Development’s National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI).
