53 out of 102 local monitoring organizations registered in the CEC are engaged in activities against the Georgian Dream [GD]. Such a statement made today Givi Mikanadze, a member of the parliamentary majority.

“We would like to present you with information about those monitoring organizations registered in the CEC, which are exposed in connection with political subjects and activities against the GD.

One month ago, on September 27, we conducted an interim briefing on the same issue, out of 49 registered organizations, 19 were identified as directly connected to the opposition and 7 local monitoring organizations operating against GD.

Here, it should be noted that one monitoring organization, namely the Law and Equality Center, which is affiliated with the United National Movement and Akhali, after our presentation of the interim report, based on its own statement, was canceled by the CEC.

After the interim report of September 25, 53 local monitoring organizations were additionally registered with the CEC. GD conducted monitoring based on open sources to determine the connections of these organizations with political entities. The research methodology used was the public relations of the founders, board and executive branch representatives of the registered local monitoring organizations with political entities, expressed by the membership of the political entity and/or by the statements and donations made in their favor.

As for the biased monitoring organizations, they were identified by their propaganda against the ruling team in the public space and/or by refraining from reflecting many pre-election violations against the publicly announced by the ruling team in their published interim reports.

As a result of the research, it was revealed that out of 102 organizations registered by the CEC, 37 organizations are directly affiliated with political parties, that is, every third, in fact, 36% are directly affiliated with political parties.

Within the framework of monitoring, it was also established that 16 organizations are engaged in a campaign against the GD, which is confirmed by their own reports and public activities, that is, we are talking about 16% of the registered ones.

Accordingly, as a result of research based on public sources, it was revealed that 53 of the 102 local monitoring organizations registered in the CEC, or more than half (52%) are engaged in activities against the GD. Now, as an example, we present information about several organizations exposed as a result of the research, which will once again convince the public who wants to monitor the elections and who is going to make conclusions about the elections.

The monitoring organization Critical Citizen was registered by CEC, whose director is Nugzar Khozrevanidze, and the board members are Marad Shavadze, Rismagi Khozrevanidze and Nodar Dzirkvadze. On December 15, 2020, the director of the organization, Nugzar Khozrevanidze, was arrested near the High Council of Adjara in Batumi during an incident with the police, he was pasting “posters” on the building – “Fake elections”. He is an active supporter and activist of the UNM. In May 2022, Khozrevanidze took part in the rally demanding that Saakashvili be transferred abroad for treatment.

Shavadze is still the deputy chairman of the UNM faction of the Khulo Municipality Council, and Rismagi Khozrevanidze is the PR manager of the UNM of Adjara. As for Nodar Dzirkvadze, he is a member appointed by Strategy Agmashenebeli in the 19th election precinct of Khulo District.

CEC has also registered “Youth Initiative for Future Georgia” as a monitoring organization. The chairman of this organization, Lasha Adamia, is a member of the UNM of Adjara and actively engages in party activities.

Similarly, the CEC registered the organization “Alternative NGO” and the organization “Public Opinion Research Center” as local monitoring organizations. The chairman of “Alternative NGO” is Khatuna Beridze, who is a member of the UNM party; Nato Natsarashvili, a member of the board of the organization, donated 7,000 GEL to the “Akhali” on September 6, 2024. As for Givi Nakhutsrishvili, chairman of the “Public Opinion Research Center”, he was a candidate for majority in Batumi from the UNM in the local self-government elections of 2017. He is still an active supporter of the UNM.

For the public’s attention, we would like to point out that the above-mentioned four organizations, I will repeat their names once again - Critical Citizen, Youth Initiative for Future Georgia, Alternative NGO and Public Opinion Research Center, are actually part of a single scheme, which is confirmed by the following circumstance : In order to obtain the status of a local monitoring organization, in order to prepare extracts from these four organizations, the same authorized person, Ushangi Mikeladze, applied to the National Public Registry Agency on behalf of all four organizations. Ushangi Mikeladze is an active supporter of the UNM, which is confirmed by his donation of 3,300 GEL to the UNM in 2022.

It is noteworthy that the organization Georgian Order, whose board chairman - Zurab Grigalashvili, is registered as an observer organization, in Poland, St. He is a member of the Precinct Election Commission appointed by the UNM at the election station created in Warsaw.

In order to obtain the status of a local monitoring organization, the preparation of an extract to be submitted to the CEC was requested by the same authorized person - Ivane Burduli, on behalf of the organization “APM Georgia” and the organization “Samoqalaqo Ertoba” in the National Public Registry Agency. We would like to remind the public that in 2020, a secret recording was spread on the Internet, where Ivane Burduli demanded to leave the service by demarche from the CEC official in exchange for financial benefits. Also, Ivane Burdul donated 11,204 GEL to the UNM in 2023-2024. In addition, in 2016 Nestan Dalakishvili, the head of the organization “Samoqalaqo Ertoba”, made a donation of 3,000 GEL in favor of the “New Political Center – Girchi”.

As a result of our research, it was determined that 37 exposed organizations are directly connected with 12 opposition political entities. In addition, it is important to analyze that in 2015-2024, 27 representatives of NGOs donated up to 800 000 GEL to opposition political parties. It is interesting, whether the donors who finance these organizations will be interested in how much of the funds transferred by the donors obtained as a result of the research are from the grants given by them?!

It is obvious that the monitoring of the elections by the organizations identified as a result of the research will be biased and will have nothing to do with objectivity. That is why we constantly share information about these organizations with our society and international monitoring organizations. Here, we call on international monitoring missions to reflect evidence-based information on identified local monitoring organizations in their reports and not to take into account subjective information received from them”, - said Givi Mikanadze.