Jorsch: Georgia's NATO membership depends on democratic nature of parliamentary elections

Matthaus Jorsch, a member of the delegation of Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), has stated that presentation a NATO membership plan to Georgia will depend on the fairness level of the forthcoming parliamentary elections.

On April 23-25, the PACE delegations spent two days in Georgia supervising preparations for May 21 parliamentary elections.

Mr Jorsch has reported that the count of complaints from the opposition against violations of the pre-electoral legislation by Georgian authorities is much smaller than before the presidential election. He made no comments on the violations reported to him by oppositionists. According to Matthaus Jorsch, no evidences of these violations were presented to him.

The delegation head has still noted that voters' lists need updating. They still have plenty of double records.

The Council of Europe's delegation has noted the importance of accord of the Central Electoral Commission with groups of local observers. In the opinion of PACE's observers, "there is some concern of the active participation of local- and state-level bureaucrats in campaigning for the party in power. It can cause a suspicion that the use of administrative resources is not excluded from political life."