ECMI Caucasus forms election observatory in Georgia

On 1 October Georgian citizens cast their votes in the parliamentary elections. Prior to, during, and after elections ECMI Caucasus’ so-called election observatory will follow the parties’ attitudes towards the country’s minorities.

In order to follow the minority participation in the parliamentary elections 2012, ECMI Caucasus establishes an election observatory. It will cover the pre-election period and a period up to 14 days after elections.

The observatory will identify the Georgian political parties’ attitudes. Their attitudes towards national minority participation in public life, integration issues, and how political parties intend to build the diversity management policy, are targets of observation.

Reporting on the findings

The analysis and the findings will be presented in regular updates beginning on 10 September. This is the day when the party programmes will be publicly available. It is also the day, when the candidates of the political parties will be presented and the televised debates start being broadcasted.

The analysis of the general election environment of Georgia will be presented from a minority participation angle and in relation to the new election code. This code was adopted nine months ago.

As a final outcome of the observatory ECMI Caucasus plans to release an ECMI Issue Brief that will assess the level of minority participation in 2012 parliamentary elections and to compare it with the findings of 2008 parliamentary elections.