09 January 2025,   10:40
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Kauma`s visit was postponed only because the opposition and civil sector, which has no evidence of election fraud, didn`t express their willingness to talk to her - Bozhadze

The First Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, Lado Bozhadze, responded to the statements of Pia Kauma, the President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.

"Any attempt from inside or outside the country is irrelevant to legitimacy. This was also discussed, among others, by the President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. So, any visit that may or may not take place in the country is in no way related to the legitimacy of the Government.

The visit was supposed to take place today and was postponed only because the opposition and the civil sector, which constantly spoke about the alleged fraud of the elections and did not agree with the election results, did not express their willingness to discuss these issues with the President. Why?! Because more than 2 months have passed since the parliamentary elections and neither the opposition nor the civil sector have been able to provide concrete evidence of the alleged fraud of the elections, because such a thing does not exist in nature. This was the reason for postponing the visit, not the fact that the visit of a specific official may have any connection with the legitimacy of the government", - explained Lado Bozhadze.

Pia Kauma, the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, in the interview with Radio Liberty, talks about her planned – and subsequently cancelled – visit to Georgia.

"… I think, first of all, all countries have things to improve. The level of democracy is never finalized. There are always things to improve. But had that case been Finland, I think it would have been very important also from our point of view that nobody from outside tells us if the government is legitimate or not. It would really harm the sovereignty of the country if somebody from outside stipulated its legitimacy.

… Well, I would have promoted dialogue in that case too. I think it’s always a good tool. And what I’m really concerned about when it comes to Georgia at the moment is that the governing party, the opposition are quite apart from each other in their views. In my opinion, at some point, it would be advisable to have somebody mediate or facilitate a dialogue between the different parties, as is done in Finland. People, especially in small countries, simply have to stick together. If we are divided, we cannot fight the external fights. Therefore, we should do our best to avoid polarization and try to understand each other… It would have been very important to engage with all the important counterparts in Georgian society, including the opposition and civil society organizations. But it seemed that there was not enough willingness to meet us at this point, and I think that while it is important that we, on the OSCE side, show initiative to travel to Georgia, there has to be enough, how to put it, welcoming spirit in the country too. I received a letter from 3 opposition parties saying that they would rather see me coming later or they would like to have certain conditions in place before I come. One of them was regarding setting a date for new elections, the other was regarding the detained protesters - that those people should be released. And at this point, of course, it would be very difficult for me to meet these requirements. But I want to add that the government officials were willing to meet with us and were also very prepared and ready to discuss all the recommendations of ODIHR. … [the visit was canceled] because had I traveled to Tbilisi and met only with government officials, it would have sent precisely the message I wanted to avoid: that we were showing support for the government. As I`ve said, that is not our role, and we do not wish to do so".

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