The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) gave muted praise on Thursday to Georgia's recent parliamentary elections, but made clear their implementation was "uneven and incomplete," according to dpa. The preliminary findings by Europe's top election review agency contrasted sharply with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who had claimed the vote was free, fair, and generally in line with international standards. An OSCE statement pointed out both successes and failures in the former Soviet republic's conduct of its second-ever democratic parliament vote. Georgia's electoral legal framework, the campaign's wide variety of candidates, fairly open media giving a full spectrum of views, a general calm on voting day, and freedom for all parties to campaign were cited as clear positive achievements in the Georgian vote. At least isolated and possibly more than occasional instances of voter and observer intimidation, government use of state media to push its political party, the Saakashvili party's unilateral change of voting law shortly before the election, failure of election commissions and courts to review some complaints, were cited as drawbacks to the vote. In a subtle but unmistakable shot at Saakashvili's arguments the vote results accurately represented the will of the Georgian people, the OSCE statement avoided describing the Wednesday vote as in keeping with international standards, instead using the language "political stakeholders in Georgia made efforts to conduct yesterday's parliamentary elections in line with international standards. More directly, the report cited "many significant procedural shortcomings" in the vote counting process. Joao Soares, head of an OSCE delegation to Georgia, nevertheless avoided calling the vote undemocratic, saying "These elections were not perfect, but since I was here in January for the presidential election, concrete and substantial progress has been made. Problems and much work remain."
