Opnieuw hoop voor Georgiërs

• 2004-01-05

Het Groene EP-lid Per Gahrton (Zweden) was officieel EP-waarnemer bij de verkiezingen in Georgië. De stembusgang verliep in een optimale sfeer.

Georgian Presidential elections: "Desperate hope fuelled Saakashvili landslide"

Commenting on yesterday's Presidential elections in Georgia, Swedish Green MEP and official European Parliament election observer, Per Gahrton said:
"Michael Saakashvili's landslide victory yesterday was without a doubt an expression of the Georgian people's desperate hope for an improvement to their situation.

In the small, snow-covered mountain villages in the Kacheti province where I observed the election, I did not see a single trace of impropriety. The election day was instead characterised by a carnival-like atmosphere. When votes were counted in the village of Godori the electoral committee's returning officer showed me a ballot where a voter, next to a mark for Saakashvili, had written in Russian: 'I am all for him!'

Should the returning officer have been forced to reject that ballot? I did not have the heart to advice her to do so. Nor did I intervene when an illiterate old woman declared loudly that she wanted assistance to put a mark beside the name Saakashvili. In this polling station Saakashvili won 97 per cent of the votes.

It is now time for us to give the new Georgian democracy all the support we can. If not, the country risks facing a democratic backlash in a few year's time. Georgia's future must not be allowed to become a messy scramble between the United States and Russia. The European Union must act decisively and quickly and to support Georgia's new democracy."