2004 ORDINARY SESSION

REPORT
Fifth sitting

Wednesday 28 January 2004 at 3 p.m.

Mr HERKEL (Estonia). ? As one of the Parliamentary Assembly?s observers in the Georgian elections ? I observed both the extraordinary presidential elections and the parliamentary elections in November, before the rose revolution ? I wish to make some remarks.

I fully agree with the report prepared by Mr Eörsi and Mr Kirilov. There are many critical remarks in the written report, but there is also a very deep analysis. I think that the report is very useful for the future, and we genuinely hope that the new Georgian administration will consider the critical remarks in particular.

In my opinion, there are at least two important preconditions of democracy in Georgian society ? the relatively free press and strong non-governmental organisations. When we speak about elections, we cannot speak only about what happens in the polling stations on election day. We must consider the functioning of the whole of society and view a much longer period as the period of active campaign. In that regard, the preconditions of democracy in Georgia seem much better than those in some neighbouring countries, as we discussed here yesterday and on Monday.

There is a remarkable press freedom in Georgia. The position is probably not ideal, but we can say that freedom of speech was, to a certain extent, guaranteed in Georgia even when the basic freedom to vote was not guaranteed during the November elections. Yesterday, we considered a very important document and had a very important discussion about public service broadcasting. I hope that one of the steps that the new Georgian leadership will make is to establish really independent public service broadcasting without any interference from government.

I would like to emphasise the role of Georgian NGOs, which organised very good and detailed observation of elections both on 4 January and on 2 November. They were present in each polling station from 7 o?clock in the morning until the counting of votes was finished. In my opinion, the work that they did in November was decisive in promoting the rose revolution. Organisations such as For Fair Elections and Young Lawyers of Georgia made it clear to the Georgian people that fraud was evident in the November elections.

I emphasise the positive remarks that I made about the press and NGOs. They cannot guarantee democratic development or the prosperity of the country. However, they give a possibility for and are the preconditions of future developments. They are important.

Of course, there are many problems to be resolved in Georgia. Many are mentioned in the report. The main question is how to strengthen the administrative capability of the state. The first challenge is to organise fair, democratic and competitive elections in March. I wish Georgia a lot of success.