USAID Caucasus Mission Director: We are working to help ensure free and fair elections in October - long-term observers will arrive next month

We are working to help ensure free and fair elections in October - we are not focused on the result, but, of course, only on the process ,- USAID Caucasus Mission Director John Pennell said in an interview with VOA.

According to him, international long-term observers will arrive in Georgia next month.

"After granting the EU candidate status to Georgia in December, there are still nine points that the Georgian government needs to work on. USAID, as well as the US government more broadly, the European Union, and many international organizations, are working with the Georgian government on some of the remaining points, including judicial reform and many other areas. We are also working to help ensure free and fair elections in October, help address issues in the rule of law and the judiciary, and help combat disinformation and manipulation of information. These areas require joint work with the private sector, civil society and government. These are ongoing processes, many of which were ongoing even before the granting of EU candidate status.

Fortunately, we have a very strong election support program focused on helping the Georgian government and all stakeholders to ensure that the process itself is free and fair. We are not focused on the result, but, of course, only on the process. So we are working very closely with the Central Election Commission to improve the election administration capabilities, especially in light of the new electronic vote counting that will take place in this election. We are working with them to launch a voter education program so that voters know exactly what the process is. You also work with polling station representatives across the country to ensure that if a voter has a question at the polling station, they know how to answer the voter. We work with both long-term and short-term monitoring groups at international and local levels.

Within the framework of Global Aid Policy, we also work in the direction of supporting political parties. If they wish, we help political parties develop their platform on different issues and develop relationships with different segments of the electorate to really try to create a stronger democratic environment for the individual voter to have a range of choices. A pre-election assessment mission led by the National Democratic Institute [NDI] arrived a few weeks ago. Several more such missions are planned. International long-term observers will arrive sometime next month. We are actually talking about thousands of observers, both international and local. Most of that number will be from local organizations and it will be a very, very robust process. This is only what the United States government is doing, of course, other organizations and other countries will also send observers with whom we will work very closely," said John Pennell.

According to him, after the changes in the government are completed and the vacant positions are filled, meetings at the level of deputy ministers are planned to provide updated information about all programs.