Georgia: “I Want to Play a Part in This Process”
IWPR project manager explains why she is volunteering as an election observer in a vote seen as crucial to country’s democratic future.
Everyone in Georgia knows that this election will not be a normal one, and this is why I have volunteered to be part of an election observation mission.
What our country has been striving to do for the last 30 years, basically since independence, has been to join the alliance of Western, democratic nations.
And it's heartbreaking for a lot of people that they feel that although now the window of opportunity is open to achieve that – we obtained EU candidacy status in December 2023 - the government has taken completely the opposite course.
The ruling Georgian Dream party (GD), founded by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishivli, has chosen to embark on a series of legislative proposals that risk shrinking the democratic space in my country, not least abolishing gender quotes for women legislators and countering so-called LGBTI “propaganda”.
Perhaps most impactful, though, has been the Foreign Agents law, finally adopted in May, which designates all civil society groups that get more than 20 per cent of their funding from abroad as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power”.
I have worked most of my life, as has my husband, in the not-for-profit sector, and the passing of the foreign influence law indicates an obvious risk that our line of work will in time become unacceptable.
It’s frightening to think of the consequences on Georgia’s currently thriving civil society. Could repression build to the extent that is has, for instance, in Belarus? And if that happens, what kind of country will this become?
Popular protest against GD’s actions have encountered violent repression, while the government has also made great efforts to appeal to conservative, patriarchal sentiments, winning support among institutions such as the army, the church and the police.
But if we continue down this trajectory, will the country in practice belong to Orthodox Christian, heterosexual men and everyone else become second rate citizens?
So the reason I am enlisting as an election observer is that I want to play some part in this whole process, whatever happens. Even if it does not end the way that I want it to, I can at least say that I didn’t just stay home and do nothing, but instead played a positive role rather than just watching this happen to my country.
I am volunteering with a group of 30 local organisations, the biggest election observer coalition we have ever had in Georgia. The ambition is to actually have an observer in every one of the around 3,030 precincts where people will be voting, which has never happened before.
I'm going to be stationed in Tbilisi where I am registered, so I am also able to vote. The work starts at around 6am and continues until at least 8 pm when the polling station closes - and then for a few hours after that while the commission is counting the votes. I might stay at one polling station, or move from one precinct to another, or consult with observers over the phone – whatever I am assigned to do on the day.
Our training has basically been about a lot of procedural issues - how they open the precincts and which members of the commission can do what, a lot of tiny, tiny details that you need to know so that if something goes wrong you can react according to the rules.
I have in turn been delivering this training to other observers. I have been struck by the diversity and number of volunteers as compared to previous years.
Most specific for this election is how the process works with electronic voting. This is the first time that Georgia is holding elections with the use of electronic devices, and it's particularly tricky because, a lot of people believe that this means the government will actually see who they are voting for. This is not possible, but a lot of people believe this.
And there has been more training around security and what to do if there is a violation.
Generally, the election period in Georgia is very heated. We have even had cases where people just enter the polling station and attempt to steal the ballot box, or in which representatives of different parties have an actual fight in the precinct. There are likely to be political activists present whose agenda is just to hustle and start trouble.
This time round, there has been even more emotion, and the government has the administrative resources to exert pressure on people.
What often happens is that representatives of the ruling party wait outside the precinct, so when people go in – particularly state employees - they are there to remind them who they “should” vote for. We had these kinds of cases in the last elections, and it's likely it will be worse in these ones.
Lawmakers for the ruling Georgian Dream party have already accused election monitoring organisations of bias and of actively supporting the opposition. And it’s true that a lot of these organisations strongly oppose government policies and the foreign influence law, but nonetheless I believe the missions have the capacity to remain professional in terms of assessing violations.
There are two major fears.
One is that the ruling party wins, and Georgia moves towards autocracy and fully pro-Russian policies. Then it would become more and more difficult for people with liberal, democratic views to continue to live here.
This is my home, and I have always tried to instil values of tolerance and kindness in my children. How can they grow up to live in a country where people do not accept anyone who is a little bit different?
The other scenario is that there is a major disagreement about who wins the election, and it spirals into some kind of uncontrolled, messy situation.
I don’t remember a major violent incident during previous elections, but we can expect even that this time round.
However this ends, it will not be calmly.
