Parliamentary elections were competitive and relatively free, said Dutch deputy Tiny Kox, who presented a report on the Georgian October 31 elections at the winter plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

“These elections were competitive and relatively free: 48 parties and two blocks participated in the elections, out of which 10 parties succeeded to have one or more representatives elected.

The main problem of these elections was not the freeness but the level of fairness. The ruling party did not respect enough the line between itself and the state while campaigning, the international election observation mission concluded. The other main problem is that other parties decided to boycott participating in the new parliament, which goes counter to the very essence of elections – to represent voters. Our co-rapporteurs for Georgia have already called on all these parties to accept their seats in the parliament for the sake of Georgian democratic consolidation.

I think that is wise advice and I also would like to call upon the authorities to check all complaints made about the electoral process and upon the ruling party and other parties to engage in meaningful dialogue to overcome the problems that have risen and to come to a further electoral and judicial reform jointly”, - said Tiny Kox.