Parliamentary Elections, 2 November 2003

Following an invitation from Georgia, ODIHR deployed an election observation mission to observe the 2 November parliamentary elections. In response to the strong interest of the international community, the ODIHR deployed a reinforced and enlarged mission that was formally established on 2 September.

Headed by Julian Peel Yates of the United Kingdom, the mission consisted of 34 election experts and long-term observers from 16 OSCE participating States. However, observers were not deployed in Abkhazia or parts of South Ossetia where elections were not conducted.

On election day, the mission was joined by representatives of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and the European Parliament. Together, they deployed some 389 short-term observers from 43 OSCE participating States for election day.

According to the mission's final report: "The 2 November Parliamentary elections in Georgia fell short of a number of OSCE commitments and other international standards for democratic elections. The elections demonstrated that the authorities lacked political will to conduct a genuine democratic process. This resulted in widespread and systematic election fraud during and after election day, most obviously in Adjara and Kvemo Kartli regions.

"Prior to the elections, the Georgian authorities attempted to address the recurrent problem of voter lists. However, they did not make genuine efforts to compile accurate and reliable voter lists. Deficient voter registration may have led, inter alia, to the de facto disenfranchisement of potentially significant numbers of voters and to double registration. This challenged the guarantee of universal and equal suffrage and lessened voters’ confidence in the State administration."